From Cop to President

My first visit to Mount Marty University was in January of 2022. During the tour I was met with many smiling faces, but none were quite as passionate about my visit as Dr. Marc Long. Dr. Long is the president of Mount Marty University, and he asked me where I was from and what I planned on majoring in. After a little more conversation, he wished me a good rest of my visit, and we went our separate ways. That brief interaction describes Dr. Long well—he cares about the students and understands that we all are students of life.

When I met Dr. Long, there were many things I didn’t know about him. Just before the 2023 Thanksgiving break, I sat down to interview him wondering if I could take some of these things I didn’t know, turn them into questions, and find some genuine answers. He grew up on a farm about twenty minutes north of Columbia, Missouri. After graduating high school, he went to the University of Missouri in Columbia. While staying so close to home, he was able to give back to his community. 

During this time, he got to know one of the local lieutenants of the Hallsville, Missouri, Police Department. After some convincing Dr. Long went for a ride along and became hooked on law enforcement. This fascination came from his background as a political science major who had no career plans. After continuing to ride around with officers for a handful of months, Dr. Long decided to apply to be a police officer. He then proceeded to attend police academy between his sophomore and junior year of college and was hired as a reserve officer. 

He maintained his reserved officer status until after graduating, then he moved into law enforcement part time for ten years—from 1990-2000, with a short full-time stint in the Missouri State Highway Patrol. Along the way, he decided he wanted to get into higher education administration. He was hired in the chancellor's office at the University of Missouri and continued his part time police work on the weekends. Then, in 2000, as his higher education job started to develop and his family started to grow, Dr. Long left law enforcement behind. 

That leads us to where Dr. Long is now. In 2015, he became the president of Mount Marty College, which, under his leadership, experienced many changes. New buildings were added, doctoral programs started being offered, and Mount Marty became a university. When asked about what he considers one of his greatest accomplishments while at Mount Marty, he spoke highly of the implementation of the Benedictine Leadership curriculum. Dr. Long expressed, “Focusing our efforts on the importance of community in society, which is something really lost in our culture, and in the youth culture in this country. Refocusing on the importance of community, and the importance of Benedictine values in our society, and how faculty has changed their curriculum to fit that, I think it’s huge.”

Dr. Long said he is proud of the connection with the Yankton community. “I mean, when we are fourth in the NAIA in college football attendance, after just our third year, you can see the importance of the Yankton community and their support of Mount Marty.” The supportive community is part of the reason Dr. Long is still at Mount Marty. The average tenure of a college president is only five years; Dr. Long has been at Mount Marty for nearly double that. 

When asked why he has stayed for so long, he gave a couple of different reasons, one being that he loves belonging to a community which supports him. He loves what the institution stands for, the students here, Benedictine ideal of education, and its responsibility for fostering a faith component into education. “It just feels like home,” he says, ”I can’t imagine ever being a president anywhere else.”

Top 5 Things TO DO As A University President

1. Don’t lie.
2. Don’t turn ears off.
3. Don’t pretend to know it all.
4. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.
5. Don’t forsake personal or institutional values—ever. 

About Carl Massa

Carl Massa, a junior at Mount Marty University, is from Edgemont, South Dakota. He is majoring in biology (pre-health) and minoring in English writing. Massa is a long sprints runner for the track team and sings bass in the Chamber Choir. He is an avid Minnesota Vikings fan, an accomplished outdoorsman, a big rockhound, and spends his summers fighting wildland fires.