Mark Matusek and his son Kyle discover a brick remembering his uncle Marvin Matusek ’51.
For 30 years the plaza outside the Sanders Corps of Cadet Center has been systematically paved brick by inscribed brick.
Each brick has a story, and each makes other stories possible. But finding a particular brick in the sea of nearly 13,500 bricks has been almost impossible without help…until now.
Carly Davis ’16 oversees the donor brick program. When she started in this role three years ago, she knew the Corps Center needed something better. “About ten years ago we had kiosks in the Corps Center to help visitors search for bricks. Over time that technology became outdated. It rarely worked.” Instead, all inquiries were being sent to Carly via emails and phone calls. She had to manually look up each brick in the administrative system and reply, often missing people with return phone calls.
She considered publishing the information on the web using something she was familiar with like Google Sheets. However, she didn’t feel comfortable creating a protected spreadsheet. Carly reached out to other Texas A&M departments that have donor brick programs. The response was consistent: “We also need something. Let us know what you find.”
Considering the broad mission of student affairs, bricks on a plaza may seem insignificant to some people.
The story is told of three bricklayers working to rebuild St. Paul’s Cathedral in London in the 17th century. They were asked what they were doing. The first responded, “I’m laying bricks.” The second said, “I’m building a wall.” The third declared, “I’m building a great cathedral.”
In the same way, Carly understands her job is much more than ordering bricks and having them installed. The purchase of each brick adds to an endowment that advances the Corps Center’s mission. “The Corps Center is the face of the Corps for new students,” says Carly. It is the hub of recruitment programs like Spend the Night With the Corps, the Junior Cadet Accessions Program, and the Aggie Eagle Program.
Prospective cadets attend an orientation program in the Corps Center during their New Student Conference.
Those who join the Corps of Cadets can experience the tremendous impact of the program in academics, leadership development, and career readiness. Cadets display excellence in academic performance with the grades of freshmen and sophomore cadets consistently exceeding those of their peers in the greater student body.
Already the largest uniformed student group in the nation, aside from the military academies, the Corps recently announced the “March to 3,000” campaign to grow the Corps of Cadets by 40% to 3,000 members. This initiative will require improvements in both recruiting and retention of cadets.
Each brick added to the plaza helps recruit a new cadet who will eventually have their own story to tell about the opportunity afforded them to succeed through the Corps of Cadets. Providing an effective way to locate a brick can encourage new donors.
Technology Services – Student Affairs was asked to help provide a solution. The IT staff researched solutions used by brick programs at other schools and by cemeteries to locate grave markers. Everything they found was either proprietary, overly complex, or used technology that was a poor fit for this context. As they broke down the problem to identify the essential elements, they discovered a licensed module they were already using for a different purpose on another department website could be easily adapted on the Corps Center’s website for the brick program.
When shown the proposed solution, Carly was asked how well it met her needs. “On a scale of one to five, it gets an 11,” she exclaimed. “The process for importing the data from the existing administrative system is straightforward, and the locator is as easy to use as I could have hoped.” We quickly implemented the new locator service on the website.
Mark Matusek was with his son Kyle outside the Corps Center when they spotted a QR code for the new online locator posted by the door. Not expecting to find anything, they scanned the QR code and typed in their family name for fun. They were surprised to discover a brick for Mark’s uncle Marvin Matusek ’51 listed with the section, row and brick number, making it easy to locate Uncle Marvin’s brick in the plaza.
About three-fourths of the bricks are purchased by former students, many of which are given in memory of someone else. Along with about 200 of his fellow Class of ’51 classmates, Uncle Marvin bought one with his own name and class year inscribed.
Carly knows there are wonderful stories represented by the bricks. During one weekend each year, an unknown visitor leaves a bouquet of yellow flowers near a particular brick. She says, “I didn’t foresee when I took this job how much we can honor loved ones who have been lost. It’s really impactful.”
Although the Corps Center does not know the back story for every brick, the stories get told in other ways. After discovering the brick for his uncle, Mark asked his dad to tell his young son Kyle about Marvin Matusek, who passed away in 2003. Marvin graduated from Texas A&M with honors in engineering. He had an excellent memory. While in high school, Marvin worked at a gas station and memorized every license plate number. One day two crooks came, filled up on gas, then went inside and robbed the station at gunpoint. Marvin’s memory of their license plate number led to their subsequent arrest.
The simplicity of the solution belies the great impact the brick locator service will have, and it will be easy to replicate. Other student affairs departments with donor brick programs have expressed interest in also implementing this solution.
Meanwhile, the Corps Center is starting to run out of space for bricks in its plaza. It will have to decide where to continue paving brick by brick. Wherever they end up, the bricks will now be easy to find!
Adding value for our customers. That’s what we’re about. Ask how we can help you!
See if you have a relative honored with a brick by using the Corps Center’s Brick Locator.
By David Swanson, Department of Information Technology, Texas A&M University Division of Student Affairs
Photo credits: Audrey Peña, David Swanson
