wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Prominent Presbyterian educator dies in New Mexico

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Note #7487 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Prominent Presbyterian educator dies in New Mexico
02420
October 25, 2002

Prominent Presbyterian educator dies in New Mexico

Memorial service plans are not yet finalized for Harry Smith

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE - The Rev. Dr. Harry Smith, 74, a long-time president of Austin
College and a prominent Presbyterian educator and campus minister, died Oct.
24 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, of a head injury he sustained during a fall.

Born in Austin, Texas, on Aug. 28, 1928, Smith served the Presbyterian Church
as an ordained leader for 49 years.

Plans for a memorial service are not yet finalized.

"His legacy is really at the point of intersection of the Christian faith,
the church and higher education," said the Rev. Clyde Robinson, who formerly
served as the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s associate for ministries in higher
education and in students' ministries, and who met Smith during Smith's years
as the Presbyterian campus chaplain at the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill.  "His ministry emphasized that the interaction of the church and
higher education would be for the well-being of the public.

"He had a great interest in social justice issues," said Robinson, who said
that Smith had long ties to the denomination's Mission Responsibility Through
Investment (MRTI) Committee, worked to close the School of the Americas, a
controversial training school for Latin American military officers by the
U.S. military at Fort Benning, Ga., and advocated for justice for gays and
lesbians.

Smith earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Texas in Austin in
1950 and graduated from Yale Divinity School in 1953. In 1966, he received
the Ph.D. from Drew University in Madison, NJ., in the field of theology and
culture. He was elected a Kent Fellow by the National Council of Religion in
Higher Education in 1960 and a Drew Fellow for 1960-1961.

Ordained by Orange Presbytery in the Presbyterian Church in the United States
in 1953, Smith began his ministry as a college chaplain at the University of
North Carolina. He served there until 1960 and then again from 1962-1968.