An ISU employee and Cyclone mom said she learned a lot about President Steven Leath’s character this fall when she came up with an idea for a T-shirt.

In the president’s annual address this September, Leath talked about Iowa State’s seventh consecutive year of record enrollment.

He described a conversation he had with the Board of Regents about the unique number of students enrolled at Iowa State this year.

“There was some question about 36,001 — who is the one?” Leath recalled. “What I said was … ‘You know, every single student here could be the one … we really care about individual student success.’”

Leath’s message about each individual student at Iowa State resonated with a woman in the audience — Teresa Albertson, an ISU development coordinator and the mom of an ISU student.

During the reception after Leath’s address, Albertson approached her friend, Wendy Wintersteen, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, with an idea about making a T-shirt for students that would say, “I’m the one.”

Wintersteen urged Albertson to send an email to the president with her idea, but Albertson was hesitant.

“I’m not going to email the president with a T-shirt idea,” Albertson said with a laugh.

Wintersteen didn’t give Albertson the option to back out, though. Wintersteen called Leath over and introduced him to Albertson.

Albertson described her idea to the president.

“He said, ‘We’ll do that. And I’m going to give you credit,’” Albertson remembered.

She gave Leath her business card but didn’t expect anything to come out of their brief conversation.

Albertson, who serves on the Parents’ Association Board, saw Leath two weeks later at Cyclone Family Weekend.

“He mentioned the shirts will be done next week, and I remember thinking, ‘What?’” Albertson said.

Albertson said she was surprised Leath had taken her idea seriously and had acted on it so quickly. Albertson’s T-shirt idea was for sale at the campus bookstore a week after family weekend.

“President Leath does not know who I am,” Albertson said. “Anyone can walk up, share an idea with the president of the university and bing-bang-boom, it happens. I just think that’s extraordinary.”

The T-shirts, which say, “36,001 students chose Iowa State University” on the front and “I’m the 1” on the back, are for sale at the University Bookstore for $7 while supplies last. The shirts can only be purchased in-store by registered ISU students with a student ID. All of the proceeds from the T-shirts will go to Leath’s Moving Students Forward scholarship campaign.