“Many moons ago,” as Brian Carr recalls, he was walking into his first meeting on Waynesburg University’s campus, when the person running the meeting asked the group, “Does anyone have any prayer requests?”

“I almost fell on the floor,” Carr said.

Carr was joyous to witness his first meeting on a university campus in prayer. He was speechless because he was surrounded by an atmosphere where he could share his Christian beliefs. As the director of the center for student success and disability services, Carr uses his religion to drive his career and everyday passion to help students with prayer and, as he calls them, “biblical nuggets.”

“We are really wanting to keep everything we do in line with God’s will,” said Carr. “I think we have to not lose sight of that, and I think it’s really cool to work in a place that embraces our Christian values.”

Carr is passionate about working with students who are trying to find their calling, because he has been in the same position. Carr did not originally start in counseling work. His undergraduate was in civil engineering, and he worked as a civil engineer for several years. Although successful in his field, he did not find the work personally fulfilling. But Carr was skeptical on changing his major, since he thought that he would have to pay more expenses.

“My preconceived notions as a student who is paying for his college education was if I change my major, I am going to have to pay more money,” Carr said. “I found myself in a position where I had to drop everything and go back and do what I should’ve done to begin with.”

Carr then took the initiative to get a more fulfilling occupation that helps others by getting a degree in school counseling. After earning his degree, Carr worked as a high school counselor. He then applied and moved into a university-style counseling position at Waynesburg. Carr said it is important to find fulfillment, as well as being able to change with your passions to find a career path.

“There has to be a fit with who you are and what you’re doing in this world, because then that’s when your passion can come out,” Carr said. “I think we’re always exploring. We’re constantly faced with change and different things that occur within our work setting and our life experiences as well that cause us to have to adapt and reanalyze situations.”

Carr has been impacting Waynesburg’s campus for 11 years. He worked as a counselor for four years, before transitioning into his current position as director of the center for student success and disability services, which is more academically-involved.

“It was brand new for me and a really difficult decision, because I really enjoyed working in the counseling center,” Carr said.

Carr said one of the key pieces to his job when changing positions from a counselor was the disability services offered with his new title. Although it was a tough decision to transition, he found an occupation that has played a major role in student’s academic success.

“There’s so many different aspects in what I do – working with students with disabilities and seeing the challenges students have that they overcome, because it has opened my eyes so much, and to see their adversity to overcome the challenges they have and to succeed at such a high level, I feel so blessed to be able to be a part of that,” Carr said.

In addition to Carr’s drive to help students overcome challenges, he also loves to work on freshmen student schedules with Charles Beiter, scheduling coordinator and retired Waynesburg University English professor. Carr stated that they both started freshmen scheduling in February.

“It’s an elaborate web of interconnected parts,” Carr said. “We try to do the best that we can to ensure that a student is in the classes they need for their major and to be in classes that could potentially help them succeed.”

According to Carr, scheduling can become more difficult when high school credits are brought in, but Carr loves the challenge.

“It’s a grueling experience but it’s something that is so cool to see,” Carr said.

At the end of each day, when Carr is filing papers, finishing another freshman schedule or talking to a student about a futuristic schedule with a different major in mind, he focuses on the sole purpose of his mission: to help students through God’s will.

“We all have our own individual wills and agendas but we all want God’s will to be done and we want things to be of benefit to everyone,” Carr said. “It’s a student-centered focus but we’re also not ignoring the main reason why we’re here and acknowledging our creator – because without him, we don’t have anything.”