Family Matters

A successful son made his mother’s educational aspirations come true.

By TCU Magazine

May 2^nd, 2022

by Lisa Martin

TCU has long welcomed sons who follow in their mother’s footsteps to attend the university.

Far less common is a mother-follows-son journey.

Even rarer are the men who put their mothers through school, as is the case with V. David Russell ’12 and his mom, Seretha.

“Every day is really Mother’s Day for me,” said Seretha Russell, who plans to graduate from TCU in 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in child development.

Their story starts in suburban Detroit, where Seretha Russell, 56, was a stay-at-home mother who raised David and his younger sister, Janae, a psychology student at TCU, to value education and lifelong learning.

“There were no breaks in our household,” she said. “Summers. Christmases. I always gave them work to do.”

After graduating from high school at the top of his class in 2008, David Russell followed the advice of a maternal aunt who lives in Fort Worth and became a Horned Frog. He thrived at the Neeley School of Business, where he majored in accounting and finance.

“The connectivity of TCU is something that was a surprise to me,” he said. “You go to school to get an education, but what I never realized was what the relationships would mean to me in my career.”

After a stint at JPMorgan Chase, David Russell now serves as managing director and head of family office services at MGO, a private wealth management firm based in Southern California. He splits his time between a home in downtown Los Angeles and a place in Dallas.

Since August 2020, he has also served as an adjunct professor at TCU.

Following a divorce, Seretha Russell had also moved to North Texas, where she managed the jewelry department at the now-shuttered Belk in the Dallas Galleria mall.

David Russell made it possible two years ago for his mother, Seretha, to quit her job and start at TCU fulltime. Photo by Joyce Marshall

Seretha Russell became a faculty transfer scholar and receives assistance from Student Support Services — as her son, David, did during his undergraduate years. Photo by Joyce Marshall

All the while, her son encouraged her to follow her dream of earning a college degree.

“My big regret all those years was that I’d only finished a year of community college before getting married,” she said.

David Russell, 32, made it possible two years ago for her to quit the job and start at TCU fulltime.

“He told me that being a student is my job now,” she said.

Seretha Russell became a faculty transfer scholar and receives assistance from Student Support Services — as her son did during his undergraduate years.

Upon graduating, the matriarch plans to open a preschool in Fort Worth that specializes in teaching and supporting children who have experienced extreme trauma.

“It’s one of the things I’m proudest of in my life right now, that I’m able to put my mom through school,” David Russell said. “I think I’ve only started to scratch the surface of my own potential — so to help someone else do that for themselves feels important to me.”

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