T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY —Matt Schmit officially started as the new provost at Marshalltown Community College (MCC) and Iowa Valley Grinnell on June 1. He previously served as the dean of manufacturing and skilled trades at Eastern Iowa Community College (EICC) and also spent over a decade in the private sector working in trucking and logistics.
Matt Schmit, a native of Gilbertville and graduate of Don Bosco High School, had spent his entire post-collegiate life in the Quad Cities — 25 years, to be exact — including 13 with Eastern Iowa Community College (EICC), most recently as the dean of manufacturing and skilled trades. But the opportunity to return to a smaller town setting and get closer to his roots as the new provost at Marshalltown Community College (MCC) and Iowa Valley Grinnell was simply too enticing to pass up for the Cornell College alum.
Schmit officially began his duties on June 1 and spent time learning from his predecessor Robin Shaffer Lilienthal, who spent over 20 years with the Iowa Valley Community College District (IVCCD) and 14 years as the provost at MCC before retiring at the end of last month. As he and his wife Stacy, a Lisbon, Iowa native, pondered making the move, they found an ideal fit in Marshalltown.
“When I was considering the position and everything, not just the school but the community, everything, it was really a fit for what my wife and I were looking for for our next step,” he said. “I wasn’t really actively looking for another job, but this one came along and it just checked all the boxes… For us, it just made sense, we both grew up on a farm. Not that the Quad Cities is a huge city, but we’re kind of moving back to our roots a little bit.”
Another appealing factor was the ongoing revitalization in Marshalltown after the 2018 and 2020 natural disasters and the friendliness he’s been greeted with since arriving.
“I’m sure towns have them, but I have not met one, what I would call unwelcoming person yet. They’ve received myself and my family (wonderfully),” Schmit said. “Just very welcoming, and the excitement for me is not just the smaller community that we’re used to but the progress that’s happening here. That ties in with the college and the Chamber and everything else working together. It’s not always that way, so it’s kind of exciting to see that and it’s kind of refreshing, a little bit.”
As provost, Schmit said his primary duties are overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Marshalltown and Grinnell campuses, while the Ellsworth campus in Iowa Falls has a separate provost and President Anne Howsare Boyens oversees the entire district.
“Really, I look at the provost position as being in a role where I have a lot of really good team members, which was evident for me from the beginning,” Schmit said. “My job is to support them in any way I can (and) sometimes keep some things off their backs so that they can focus on what matters most, and that’s taking care of our students and making sure that their experience here at Marshalltown is good. Ironically, I look at it as a support role for them. My background being an academic dean and even a short stint on the student development side, I think, gives me some pretty good background to understand what their trials and tribulations are every day and support them.”
Thus far, Schmit and Howsare Boyens, who succeeded Kristie Fisher and began in her role last October, are finding themselves “very aligned” and excited to settle into their new positions together.
“She brings a lot of great experience from where she came from (DMACC) as well, and together, along with the rest of the leadership team, it is really a strong team, so that’s very good,” Schmit said. “Anne was a selling point for me to come here as well. She made a similar jump moving from a little larger community to Marshalltown.”
Howsare Boyens was equally complimentary of her new colleague.
“In his short time at Marshalltown Community College, Matt has proven to be a great addition to the team. His leadership style is a welcome addition to Iowa Valley,” she said.
Prior to making the career transition into academia, Schmit spent over a decade in the private sector working for a logistics and trucking firm. He found himself working with community colleges to recruit truck drivers, diesel mechanics and other employees, and he feels that experience has translated well to the other side.
“I’m a big proponent of those honest conversations with industry because if Iowa Valley and Marshalltown Community College don’t do it, somebody else will,” he said.
Schmit noted that Lilienthal has set a high bar at MCC as the campus saw a nine percent enrollment increase from 2022-2023 to 2023-2024, and he hopes to build upon that positive momentum going forward while also focusing on retention and preparing students to take their next steps once they graduate. He also hopes to use his business background to collaborate with both area employers and Vice President of Business and Community Solutions Jacque Goodman to ensure that MCC is meeting their workforce needs.
“At the end of the day, for our community to progress, grow (and) bring all of those things that people want to see in the community, we have to have a strong workforce, and I’m hoping that we’re the go-to place for a lot of those jobs,” Schmit said.
Matt and Stacy have four kids ranging in age from 12 to 20, including their oldest daughter Ella, a Bettendorf High School alum who is currently wrestling at the University of Iowa. He spends most of his free time being a dad, traveling and following his children in their athletic endeavors, and he recently had a chance to visit Peru while Ella wrestled there with the U.S. National Team.
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