Grant Warren Smith (1941 – 2021) was born in Kansas City, Missouri. His parents were Lucile Rathmann Smith and Grant Warren Smith. They met at Grinnell College in Iowa, where G. Warren would meet his future wife. His father was a chemistry professor except during WWII. After the war, the family moved to Grand Forks, North Dakota where his father taught at the university. After some years, his father took a job in the Chemistry Department at The Pennsylvania State University where G. Warren grew up.

G. Warren Smith was actively involved with the Boy Scouts which inspired his interest in nature, caving, and kayaking. He enjoyed music and took violin lessons. In his high school years, Smith was a counselor at a YMCA camp in New York State. He was in charge of the nature program, planning and leading hikes and camping trips, something he would return to in later years.

After graduating from Grinnel College, Smith went on to get his PhD in chemistry from Cornell University.

G. Warren Smith was a professor at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, and at Cornell University. He served as dean at the School of Science and Technology at the University of Houston. Just prior to coming to Slippery Rock as the fourteenth president of the university, Smith served as the fourteenth president of Southeastern Louisiana University (LSU) in Hammonds, Louisiana. During his time at SLU, Smith helped guide the university through the contentious decision to eliminate the football program so there would be enough money to move the library collection into a newly built facility.

In 1997, G. Warren Smith was named the fourteenth president of SRU and quickly began to address the university's decade-long enrollment problem. During his tenure at SRU, Smith is remembered for creating Future Watch, a taskforce to help the university continue to grow and improve, and for his efforts in fundraising for the university and its programs. Under his leadership the university received a $100,000 grant from the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education to create a technology lab. The career lab, which was located in the Maltby building, was essential in helping students further their education by offering up-to-date technology with which to work. Decades before COVID-19 was ever a thought, Smith had the foresight to see the benefit of online synchronous classes. Smith saw this as one of the future benefits of education, opening the door to students who might not be able to move to Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania.

In October 2002, after he’d served five years as president, the Chancellor of the State System of Higher Education and the Board of Governors voted not to renew Smith's contract. In a move that was shocking and unexpected, Smith was informed that his position would end in June of 2004. After a small campaign of concerned Slippery Rock citizens, alumni, and Board of Trustees members who voiced their concerns and support for Smith to the Chancellor, to Harrisburg, and to local media, the Chancellor and the Board of Governors voted to terminate Smith's position effective immediately, giving him twenty-four hours to vacate the president's office and two months to leave the president's house on campus.

Following his time at SRU, G. Warren and his wife Dr. Constance Smith decided they liked Slippery Rock so much they had their home built there. Both G. Warren and his wife were heavily involved in the program they built, the Institute for Learning in Retirement (ILR), a non-profit member-directed organization, providing lifelong learning experiences for adults. Former members of the ILR remember G. Warren as being knowledgeable about the activities he was involved with, from sharing information about plants and animal life while hiking, or providing background information on the history of an opera or song if they were going to the theatre. Smith enjoyed volunteering with the Scouts; buying and selling antique lamps; and continuing to play the violin with the Slippery Rock Orchestra. The Slippery Rock Public Library is dedicated to both Dr. G. Warren Smith and his wife, Dr. Constance Smith for their contributions towards its refurbishment.