Dr. Irving H. Smith serves as the CSU Faculty Athletics Representative, Chair of the CSU Department of Health Sciences, and Advisor to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Dr. Smith was recently named President of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) for the 2018-2020 term and Chair of the MEAC Faculty Athletic Representatives.
 
Dr. Smith retired in 2013 after 45 years of public service to become Chair of Health Sciences at Coppin State. He began at Coppin in 2008 as a faculty member in the Sport Management program. Before retirement, he taught, trained, and certified more than 65,000 coaches of all sports over a 20-year period. He also served as a national surrogate speaker for former US President Bill Clinton’s healthcare initiative, and prior to that served on a panel of presenters as part of the White House Conference on Aging, speaking on the benefits to aging individuals of lifetime sports participation.
 
He is an internationally recognized speaker/presenter and published academic author on sports and health related topics including the health and wellness benefits of lifetime sports participation. Some of that research was published in the Journal of Sports Science and he presented those findings at the International Health Conference in London, England.

Smith was also part of a research team that conducted health disparities research in Honduras. He published the findings of that research in the International Journal of Health Sciences and presented those findings at the International Conference on Public Health in Athens, Greece. Other research includes best practices for mentoring student-athletes that was published in the Journal of Physical Education and Sports Management as well as research on gesticulation that was published in the International Journal of Linguistics and Communication.
 
Prior to Coppin, Dr. Smith taught Sports Psychology and Health Psychology at Johns Hopkins University for five years and at the American School of Professional Psychology at Argosy University. A student first/student centered professor, in a University-wide survey of faculty, staff, and students, Dr. Smith was voted one of that institution’s “most inspiring” professors, more than a year after his departure.
 
For more than 10 years, Dr. Smith served as the Regional Director of Leisure and Aging for the National Recreation and Park Association representing Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and New York.