Academic advisor Arnelle Douglas, 80, has spent more than half a century shepherding students toward success

Ask Arnelle Douglas to describe himself and, despite his two college degrees and self-published memoir, the longtime Wayne State University academic advisor will self-deprecatingly tell you that he's simply "a failed scholar."

"That's what I really wanted to do was scholarship," he said with a chuckle during a recent conversation. "I wanted to write books. I wanted to give speeches. I thought I'd have my Ph.D., but it didn't work out that way."

Douglas landed at Wayne State after fleeing from Chicago to Detroit in 1968 with plans of escaping the military draft.

Perhaps not. But Douglas has hardly fallen short. Instead, after setting some of his own dreams aside, Douglas has spent more than a half century helping others at Wayne State pursue theirs.

As both a Wayne State graduate and one of the longest-serving employees at the university, Douglas has played multiple roles over a span that stretches back to the 1960s, none more significant than academic advisor, a position he has held for almost 45 years.

"The best part of the job, the part that brings me so much joy, is working with the students, offering them help, giving them advice," he said. "That's kept me alive, being a parent to all these kids. I get letters from people saying, 'Hey, you helped me. Hey, you did this, and hey, you did that.' That's kept me motivated."

Douglas, whose WSU friends and colleagues recently helped him celebrate his 80th birthday on campus, said he has remained in his post long after others would've retired because he finds pleasure and purpose in working with future graduates. It also doesn't hurt that, with his smooth face and clean-shaven head, Douglas looks at least 20 years younger than his age and possesses a spryness that matches his appearance.

Douglas recently celebrated his 80th birthday with colleagues at Wayne State

"Without that interaction with students, I would've just faded away, so that's why I'm at this job at 80 years old," he said. "It's an easy job, but it's an enlightening job. I really love talking to these students. And the only reason I think about retiring, if ever, is sometimes I get embarrassed. I'm so old, but I'm going to stay here until I feel incapacitated or just jaded. I have no reason to go."

When Douglas first arrived in Detroit from his native Chicago in 1968, he planned to do anything but stick around. He was 23 and on the run. A staunch anti-war advocate who'd been involved in civil rights struggles since his teens, Douglas had been drafted into the Army months before and was preparing to flee to Canada to avoid conscription.

But while he was in Detroit, he was granted conscientious objector status, thus avoiding military service. So, rather than run, Douglas put down roots. He and his wife had two sons. Douglas enrolled at Wayne State, earning both his bachelor's and master's. He began teaching in the Detroit Public Schools district and, part time, at WSU.

In 1982, Douglas landed a position as an academic advisor and has been a fixture in the University Advising Center ever since. He has seen dramatic changes to the campus, including new research hubs, residential buildings sprouting up in once-vacant plots and increased foot traffic. But he said the students have remained pretty much the same.

"I don't see much change in that sense," he said. "The students are always bright-eyed. They want to learn. What I do see is that we've given them more opportunities. They have more wraparound resources now. But the students are as eager now as they've always been."

But while his job has remained mostly the same, Douglas' life has continued taking wild turns. And no twist was more unexpected than when Douglas found out six years ago that he had a third child, a daughter he'd fathered prior to his marriage during a romantic evening after a political organizing conference in Buffalo.

Now 56, the woman spent years tracking him down. For Douglas, who'd had no idea he had a daughter, his introduction to his adult child opened a new chapter in his life.

"It's been great," he said. "It was a mind-blowing experience when she came to visit me. When I met her, I was just obsessed. Even now, I still contact her twice a day. I text her, and I call her in the morning. It's been a wonderful experience. We've been close ever since."

After meeting his adult daughter for the first time, Douglas wrote a self-published memoir.

The experience even inspired Douglas to write a book, Connection and the Human Spirit: A Memoir of a Search for an Identity, which details his journey as well as those of his daughter and her birth and adoptive mothers. He self-published the memoir in June.

It was as much an ode to his new relationship as it was nod to his old dreams.

"Before I came to Wayne, I always wanted to be a writer, like James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison and all those great people," he said. "I wasn't that good as a writer. And I never did get that Ph.D. But they offered me a position here, so I stayed."

And in staying, in helping so many students over the past four decades find their own careers, the so-called "failed scholar" has been nothing short of a success.