Miranda Adkins | So Salem

Brian Chisom has climbed the ranks in higher education and was just recently promoted to Assistant Dean of Students at Roanoke College.

Miranda Adkins A| So Salem

Brian Chisom has climbed the ranks in higher education and was just recently promoted to Assistant Dean of Students at Roanoke College.

It's been 18 years since he graduated from East Tennessee State, and 22 since graduating Salem High, but Brian Chisom has kept his eye on the same goal since he began his long journey through academia. He starts this new school year, working at Roanoke College as he has since 1993, with a doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies with a Cognate in Appalachian Studies from Virginia Tech.

His senior humanities teacher, Jane Brill, inspired him just to think about going to college.

Chisom grew up as a Southern Appalachian in all senses of the word. His intellectual love for local culture began with a set of Foxfire books that his parents bought him for Christmas one year. Going into Brill's classroom, he didn't think he had what it took to go beyond high school.

"I became the classroom expert as we read the Foxfire books and explored Appalachian folklore, history and culture. I was amazed to find that one could study the Appalachian region in college, and thus I relented when a beloved teacher encouraged me to pursue this area of study at the undergraduate level," he stated in an essay "On gettin' above your raisin's" that he wrote about his life while pursuing his master's degree at East Tennessee State.

He wrote letters to authors he read, including Eliot Wigginton (Foxfire books), who sent him back an autographed copy -- according to an article from his high school newspaper his senior year, that note is what finally encouraged him to go into higher education.

So instead of starting in the blue collar world or joining the military like other successful members of his family, he earned his Bachelor of Arts and he became the first of his family to graduate from a four-year-school. He was able to primarily study English with concentrations and minors in Appalachian studies all the way through his education.

Because Appalachian studies was a relatively new field when Chisom started out, he even got to study under some of the field's fathers, like Jack Higgs and Tom Burton.

Because he was the first college graduate of his family, that took him from the blue collar world into the world of what the Appalachian poet, Jane Hicks, calls a "cosmic possum," Chisom said in his essay. When he first arrived at East Tennessee State in 1987, he "felt about as comfortable as a Kennedy would at a flea market," he said. Now, he has climbed the ranks in higher education and was just recently promoted to Assistant Dean of Students at Roanoke College.

He started out at Roanoke as an academic-career coordinator for Upward Bound students and his jobs there have always included a student-advising aspect.

"I don't play favorites -- you can't. But I'd be lying if I didn't say that I have a special place in my heart for first generation college students," Chisom said. "Really my dream job is to continue working in student affairs and administration but also to teach a class each semester in Appalachian Studies.