When he was spending nights curled up with his wife and two daughters on a single mattress in the corner of a converted dog kennel, Malcolm Magee couldn’t have imagined that he would one day teach at a university.

Those nights with his young family in the basement of someone else’s home, he didn’t anticipate one day giving students life advice.

“I never planned to be a professor in college,” said the MSU history and religious studies professor. “Not at one point when I was 19, would that have entered my head.”

Magee said he has led a life of unpredictability, aware that life isn’t linear and there is a beauty in the ever changing.

He dropped out of high school, survived homelessness, was censured for heresy and even lost a limb — Magee has overcome a great deal of adversity.

“I’ve been in all the lower 48 states and 11 countries, and I have lived in seven states from New York to California,” Magee said. “(You have to) be willing to get off the track once in a while. I don’t know why I am here or how long I’m here for — but I’m here.”

His story

Growing up on a farm in Zillah, Washington, a young Magee had a promising future. But he said what he had in intelligence, he lacked in patience.

Acting as junior class president, Magee said he was eager to graduate early and begin a life with more importance. But after being told by his high school that he wasn’t allowed to, Magee left on his own terms.

“I dropped out of high school in 1975. I decided that I wanted to graduate early and they decided they had a policy not to, so I quit,” Magee said. “I was junior class president and I just dropped out. Thought I would do something different.”

With the agreement that he would receive his GED, Magee was soon accepted into a bible college in Yakima, Washington.

After studying an interesting, yet radical approach to seminary, Magee graduated from the college when he was 18. He married his wife a year later and had his first child the year after that.

Unsure of his path, the wide-eyed Magee moved to Southern California, making a living by driving trucks, selling bearings and working in factories.

“I have had a lot of crappy jobs,” Magee said. “And I have done it while I was trying to figure out what things matter. Wherever I went, in whatever way possible, I tried to make the world better.”

A later move didn’t offer similar hospitality.

“By 1981 we moved to St. Louis and we were homeless,” Magee said. “I had two children at the time and some people were kind enough to let us stay in their basement they converted into a dog kennel.”

After four or five months without a home, Magee received a loan and earned enough money from a sales job to rent a cheap apartment.

Continuing on the path of unpredictability, he made his way back to the ministry. But as he was set to take over a seminary in England, he was censured for heresy.

“It means, if you’re censured for heresy, it means they don’t agree (with you),” Magee said. “I had gotten a little too liberal.”

Eventually, Magee went to MSU for graduate school. Unfortunately, his broken path had one last crack.

As he was finishing graduate school at MSU, he was hit by a car, losing a leg in the incident.

“I lost a leg, both legs actually, but they reattached one,” Magee said. “And I had a few years to sit in a wheelchair and I finished my Ph.D. in history and I started teaching here.”

His advice

Magee acts as an inspiration to both star and struggling students. Understanding that everyone leads a different path, the professor said he advises students to do what they love because everything will work itself out.

“Don’t make every decision based on what you think you are going to get paid for,” Magee said. “Because if you learn to learn, and you love it, and you’re curious, you’re going to find a job somewhere. You’re going to be able to do something.”

When speaking about a future filled with possibility, Magee talks with an obvious enthusiasm.

“Somehow or other, I think most people want to leave the world a better place than they found it,” Magee said.

But in order for a student to truly explore their life, Magee said he believes it is important for them to take a step off the path carved by society.

“One thing that bothers me is how many of the students I see feel like ‘I’ve got to do this, I’ve got to do this,’” Magee said. “Well, who says you have to do it? Or anything. What about finding something that you really just love?”

With a number of students inspired by Magee’s journey, his advice has not fallen on deaf ears.

General management freshman Chris Breeden took Magee’s course his first college semester and said he couldn’t have had a better welcome.

“I think it’s great advice, just look at where he ended up now,” Breeden said. “Obviously, I’m sure things were pretty hard, but one of the greater lessons of (his) story is to never give up.”

His impact

Once hired by MSU in 2005, a year after defending his Ph.D., Magee has affected the lives of both faculty and students.

Logan O’Neil, former student and current graduate secretary in the College of Arts and Letters, said he believes Magee’s teachings directly correlate with the life he has led.

“He shows a picture of his grandchildren and pleads to his students to ‘go out and make the world a better place,’” O’Neil said.

O’Neil said that Magee’s background gives him the authority to speak on such matters but also gives him enough humility to connect with others.

“Malcolm’s impact on my life is simply too large to be quantified,” O’Neil said.