Michael Dreher hears it from his girlfriend all the time, especially when he walks to and from class dressed in a sharp button-down shirt.
“She calls me an old soul,” Dreher says. “It’s a term of endearment really. She’ll say, ‘Why don’t you dress like a college student and not like your dad?’ and I always tell her, ‘If I could be more like my dad, I would.’”
Dreher’s girlfriend, Isla McGlauflin, knows him well. They’ve dated for six years. They met in high school in Lake George, New York, their hometown in the Adirondack Mountains. Dreher met McGlauflin on the driving range of a golf course while practicing with his school’s golf team.
Dreher is now an HPU senior, a business administration major and computer science minor. He is president of his fraternity, a member of six honor societies, Chief Justice of HPU’s Student Government Association and now HPU’s Extraordinary Leader for the month of August.
Like any student leader on campus, Dreher is busy – even on a Friday night on the final night of recruitment for Beta Theta Pi.
How busy? He’s on a trampoline.
Learning The Importance of Legacy
At the Get Air Trampoline Park near campus, Dreher tried to keep his balance. He couldn’t. He fell up to his chest in
a sea of purple and lime-green rubber blocks, and he just laughed. After Beta
’s week-long rush, Dreher wanted, in his own words, to “let loose.”
But his idea of letting loose is different.
Dreher emphasizes his fraternity’s “Men of Principle” tagline as well as its five core values – mutual assistance, responsible conduct, intellectual growth, trust and integrity. It’s paid off.
For the past two years, Beta Theta Pi has been named HPU’s Chapter of the Year. Meanwhile, with 137 chapters nationwide, HPU’s Beta Theta Pi has been recognized as one of its best.
Ask Dreher about all that, and he’ll reference a poem that hangs in Beta’s fraternity house. It’s the poem “The Bridge Builder,” 22 lines about how a conversation between a carpenter and a passerby becomes a metaphor for helping those coming behind.
At 22, Dreher thinks about that. He wants to leave a legacy that can help fraternity brothers he doesn’t even know.
“I feel like I owe it to all the people who came before me,” he says. “I want to help the next guy. I made it across because the people before me helped me get across.”
HPU marketing professor Randy Moser, the fraternity’s faculty advisor, calls Dreher “the balancer.” He sees Dreher as a fraternity president who leads with a silk glove rather than an iron fist.
Dreher, the oldest of three, learned that leadership style from his parents. His dad is a dentist, his mom is a homemaker, and he doesn’t shy away from taking a path hardly traveled by his peers.
After high school, when many of his friends went to college in the Northeast, Dreher went to work. He took a gap year. He managed a dinner theater show for four months and spent the rest of the year shadowing professionals in sales, information technology and contract negotiations.
Around that time, he heard about High Point University. It was the only university he applied to. He liked what he saw – HPU’s entrepreneurial approach, its outside-the-box intellectual spirit and the bedrock values the university espouses. Dreher learned those lessons first from his family and Troop 13, where he earned his Eagle Scout award.
And now, the university he wanted to attend would continue that education.
“If I get in there,” he told his parents, “I’m going!”
Dreher did get in. He moved 12 hours away from home – 14 hours with traffic – not knowing a soul.
HPU: A Place of Opportunity
Dreher has done well. He is a Presidential Scholar who has earned five scholarships to defray his college expenses, and he has volunteered with the Boys and Girls Club, Open Door Ministries, the Salvation Army and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
McGlauflin, Dreher’ girlfriend, transferred to HPU two years ago. She’s now a senior majoring in psychology.
Like he’s done his entire life, Dreher looks to the future. This summer, he interned with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and he’s talking with his former manager about working full-time there after he graduates in May.
But like “The Bridge Builder” poem, Dreher does look to his past. When he does, he realizes what he’s learned.
He points to his professors, of course. But he also mentions HPU President Dr. Nido Qubein and Marc Randolph, the Netflix co-founder and HPU’s Entrepreneur in Residence. They all helped him understand the importance of personal responsibility and self-awareness.
“High Point University is a place that challenges you to do that, to be aware and personally responsible for who you are, and that is a great gift,” he says. “Now, I know that whatever challenge I face in the future I can be true to my integrity. I am confident of that.”