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I NEWS
INSIDE MOREHOUSE, OCTOBER 2012
John Handy Named Faculty Member of the Year
Anne Watts, associate vice president for Academic Affairs; John Williams ‘69, dean of the Division of Business Administration and Economics; John W. Handy,
professor of economics; President Robert M. Franklin 75; Willis B. Sheftall ‘64, interim provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs
E conomics professor John Handy keeps saying he is ready
to retire, but each day he realizes one thing.
“1 just can’t do it,” Hand}' said with a laugh. “I just
can’t leave the classroom. I’ve been teaching for more than 40
years. I just love teaching.”
That dedication is just one of the reasons Handy was given
the Vulcan Materials Company Teaching Excellence Award as
the Morehouse Faculty Member of the Year for 2012-13.
Handy is the ninth person to win the award.
“In recognition of outstanding contributions to under
graduate education, student learning and campus life, the
Vulcan Material Company and the Georgia Independent
Colleges Association are pleased to present their teaching excel
lence award to.. .one who is a scholar, author, proposal writer
and program director, community volunteer, who has been
leading on many fronts and teacher of hundreds and hundreds
and hundreds who sing his praises the world over,” said Anne
Watts, associate vice president for Academic Affairs.
A Bronx, N.Y. native, Handy has been at Morehouse for 25
years, starting in 1978 when he directed the Manpower Human
Resources Program. He also started a college preparatory pro
gram for high school juniors and seniors.
He left Morehouse to work at Clark Atlanta University,
where he and then-president Thomas W. Cole Jr. started one
of Atlanta’s first community development corporations, the
University Development Corporation. That group spear
headed residential and community development in the Atlanta
University Center area.
Handy came back to Morehouse in 1992 to become chair
of the economics department, a post he held until 2007. Handy
hired his successor - his former student, Gregory Price ’82.
Handy has continued to be active nationally and locally in
community development activities.
“The reason I got into economics in the first place was
because I was interested in community economic development,”
he said. “I was always interested in housing development and
housing opportunity.”
Though he isn’t a Morehouse graduate, Handy’s family has
deep ties to the Atlanta University Center. His mother grew up in
a house that still stands behind Davidson House. His uncle was
former president Hugh Gloster’s classmate. And the females in
his family all went to Spelman.
But what keeps Handy at Morehouse are the students, espe
cially those who come back after establishing successful careers to
say thank you.
“There’s nothing better,” Handy said. “That makes me
feel like I’ve done something or accomplished something.
There’s no other field where you can get that. It’s like hitting
a home run.” ■
NEWSBRIEFS
Morehouse Ranked Among Top 20 in
Sending Seniors to Teach for America
Morehouse has been ranked as one of the nation’s top
feeder schools to the Teach for America program. Eleven
members of Morehouse’s class of 2012 will be part of
Teach for America this year, putting the College among
the top 20 small colleges and universities. Since 1997,97
Morehouse graduates have taught as corps memebers.
Teach for America recruits and develops college graduates
to teach in high-need schools and become lifelong leaders
in the movement to end educational inequity. This fall,
more than 10,000 corps members will teach in 46 urban
and rural regions across the country.
Benefits Fair Begins Open Enrollment
Period for Health/Dental Plans
The Morehouse College Benefits Fair, which will be held
on Oct 18, serves as the beginning of the open enrollment
period for health and dental benefits for faculty and staff.
The Benefits Fair will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
in the Exeutive Conference Center. A number of health/
dental vendors will be on hand to answer questions and
discuss their services. A light lunch will be provided.
The open enrollment period runs from Oct 18-Nov. 1. For
more information, call Human Resources at (404) 215-2656.
Woodndf Unary Offers Extended Hons for NSd-Terms
The Robert W. Woodruff Atlanta University Center
Library will have extended hours during the week prior to
and the week of mid-term exams.
Beginning at 7:30 am. on Oct 1, the library will be
open 24 hours. It will be open from noon to midnight on
Saturday, Oct. 6 and beginning at noon on Sunday Oct 7,
the library will be open 24 hours a day from Oct 7-12.
A shuttle will operate after midnight from the library
to the Atlanta University Center residence halls during
extended hours.
PASSAGES
Hoeun Chung Brought Chapel’s Blank Walls to Life
BY VICKIE G. HAMPTON
THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY that brought dozens of
highly acclaimed art pieces to Morehouse began at an
unlikely location: Lenox Square Mall in Atlanta.
In 1982, while window shopping—which included
the typical flashy fads and trends of mall culture—the
newly appointed dean of the Martin Luther King Jr.
International Chapel, Lawrence E. Carter Sr., came face to
face with beautiful, authentic art.
“At the back of the mall, I came across some of the
most magnificent, gorgeous portraits I had ever seen,”
Carter recalled.
The artist was Hoeun Chung, a Korean who had come
to the states less than a decade earlier, but who was already
making a name for himself. He greeted his curious visitor
with warmth and youthfulness, said Carter.
Carter, in turn, introduced himself to Chung as the
dean of the most prominent religious edifice in King’s
honor. He went on to explain that the Chapel had lots of
wall space, but no stain glass windows or, for that matter,
a portrait of King.
“I explained that I wanted something large and differ
ent from what anyone had ever seen.”
And Chung delivered. The portrait depicted King in
a Boston University graduation robe—something never
before painted. The massive portrait included the faces
of prominent civil and human rights activists, including
King’s mentor and former Morehouse president Benjamin
E. Mays; Booker T. Washington; and individuals who had
worked alongside King during the civil rights movement.
“I was literally blown away,” Carter recalled.
Then Carter asked the hard question: “How much?”
Chung answered: “You can’t afford it.”
When Carter heard the fee - $25,000 - he concurred.
“However,” Chung continued, “I’m going to give it to
you on permanent loan.”
“That was Chung’s gift to Morehouse College,” Carter
said recently, explaining the legacy Chung, who died in
August, has left at Morehouse.
Over the next three decades, Chung almost single-
handedly turned the blank walls of King Chapel’s cor
ridors and vestibule into the breath-taking International
Hall of Honor, one of the nation’s largest collection of
oil portraits of the world’s most revered prophetic social
engineers, nonviolence practitioners, peace advocates and
civil and human rights leaders.
Of the Hall’s 177 portraits, Chung painted 174. The
subjects run the gamut from international peacemakers
such as Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi to alumni
change agents such as Maynard Jackson ‘56 and Otis Moss
Jr. ’56.
Hoeun Chung with a self-portrait that now hangs in the International Hall of Honor
Throughout his career, Chung was a sought-after artist
whose work was displayed in public buildings, corporate
boardrooms, and colleges and universities nationwide.
In 2006, Coretta Scott King personally selected him
to paint a larger portrait of her late husband to replace
a smaller rendering that had hung in the Georgia State
Capitol for 32 years. Chung made the portrait 50 per
cent larger.
And though Chung mostly painted from pictures and
stand-ins (Carter donned the Boston University gown for
the King portrait) the portraits are routinely praised for
their lifelike quality.
“It is like [Chung] took a picture with his eye and
transferred it to the canvas,” said Carter. ■