The Inter-Mountain photo by Brad Johnson Davis & Elkins College President Chris Wood, right, welcomes D&E junior Matin Eisa into his office and behind his desk to serve as the school’s president for a day Monday.

ELKINS — Call it “Freaky Monday,” as an authority figure and a student changed roles for a day at Davis & Elkins College.

For the second straight year, D&E President Chris Wood switched places with one of the college’s students for a day, with Wood going to classes as a student, and junior Matin Eisa running the college as the school’s “president” on Monday.

“It has been busy,” Eisa told The Inter-Mountain midway through Monday morning. “Not much time to sit back and relax. I’m meeting tons of new people, so it’s been fun.

“I found out about this maybe a couple weeks ago,” he said. “It’s exciting.”

Eisa is from Crowthorne in the United Kingdom, “just southwest of London,” he said. He is a member of the D&E golf team.

“That’s the main reason I came to America to attend college was to play college golf in the USA,” he said.

“D&E is quite nice, because it’s a smaller school but it’s a very friendly school, because you meet loads of people,” Eisa said. “I’ve been telling people, you come to a smaller school and you think you’re not going to know as many people as at a bigger school, but it’s actually the opposite. When you come to a small school your circle is actually bigger, because you meet so many people.

“The one thing that’s really different from back home is the amount of space that West Virginia has,” he noted. “I mean, England is very small. But coming out here, the rolling hills are very nice and I really like it.”

Eisa visited D&E with his father before deciding to attend the school.

Wood said the “President for a Day” event gives students a new perspective.

“It’s a wonderful, and hopefully eye-opening, experience for a student, to understand an organization and how it runs. I’m really thrilled that Matin gets this opportunity,” he said.

“I think this is one of the things that’s unique about a school like Davis & Elkins. We can offer opportunities like this to students, so they can see the bigger picture of what life can be once they move beyond our campus.”

Eisa said his schedule for the day was jam-packed.

“I had meetings with cabinet members,” Eisa said of his morning. “They walked me around, and showed me some of the new technologies here. I was very interested.

“At lunchtime I’m going to go down to the Elkins Rotary Club and I’m going to be their guest speaker for the day. And then later I’ll meet some more school officials.”

“He also has a Zoom call coming up with the chairman of the board,” Wood said with a chuckle.

While Eisa was working through the college president’s daily schedule, Wood was attending Eisa’s classes for the day, including math and statistics. Eisa is a finance major minoring in math.

“Thank goodness he didn’t have a calculus class today!” Wood said with a laugh.

A nomination process led to Eisa being chosen for the honor.

“We encouraged nominations for president for the day,” Wood said. “We got some from our faculty and our staff, and actually from some students as well. Ultimately it was the cabinet of the college that took the nominations and decided on the final candidate, based on qualifications.”

Eisa was recently named the president of the D&E Student Government Association, and is excited to serve in the position.

“Three of the previous SGA members will be graduating,” he said. “So it’ll be nice to be starting with a new team and just really build on the ideas the students bring to us. I think we’d like to take a more modern approach and update a few ideas we’ve found. I think it will be a nice chance to add a few new things.”

Eisa is also interested in D&E student’s relationship with Elkins as a whole.

“I think the connection between the students at D&E and the community of Elkins is really good because it’s so strong, and I think it’s something we can build upon,” he said. “I think getting people from the community involved with events on campus is something we should really be working on.

“Also, just getting students out into the town is another huge factor that plays a part. I think going forward, that’s something we should work on.”