Samuel H Magill

Samuel Hays Magill served higher education for over fifty years, over sixteen of which as a college president. He was born July 19, 1928 in Decatur, Georgia, the youngest child of Orrin and Ellen Magill who served the YMCA in China during much of the first half of the 20th century. Educated in White Plains, NY schools, Deerfield Academy, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Yale University and Duke University. At Yale Divinity School he was profoundly influenced by the teaching and writing of H. Richard Niebuhr and Reinhold Niebuhr. Magill began his career in the campus ministry at Davidson College in 1953 but soon moved into student affairs at UNC-CH where he taught religion and administered student activities. In 1959, as a Danforth Foundation Special Fellow, he entered the doctoral program in Religion at Duke University, receiving the Ph.D. in 1962. His dissertation on the thought of Hans J. Morgenthau served to inform his work throughout his career. Dickinson College appointed him Assistant Professor and College Chaplain that year. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1966. In 1963,Magill became the youngest person ever to be named chief academic officer of Dickinson College, serving as Dean of the College until 1968 when he became President of the Council of Protestant Colleges and Universities, a Washington based association of Protestant church-related institutions. During his brief time in that position he provided oversight to an Asian Workshop on Higher Education in Hong Kong. CPCU merged with the Association of American Colleges in 1970. Magill’s lifelong interest in liberal learning led him to become the academic affairs specialist of the AAC as chief of academic affairs, a post he occupied from 1971 to 1976. In that post he initiated the Project on the Status and Education of Women, the Workshop for Academic Deans, and the Carnegie Corporation funded project on the Reform of Undergraduate Liberal Education. Between 1976 and 1979 Magill served as president of Simon’s Rock Early College in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, an innovative institutions designed to offer a baccalaureate degree program to students wishing to enter college before the completion of high school. In 1979, Magill initiated successfully a merger with Bard College. From 1980 to 1993 Magill was President of Monmouth College in New Jersey, now Monmouth University, at the time a comprehensive institution of 4,400 students. During his tenure he led initiatives which raised $40 million for endowment, construction and new educational ventures. Over the decade of the 1980’s Monmouth moved into the first rank of New Jersey colleges and universities. In 1995, two years after his retirement, Monmouth was awarded university status by the State of New Jersey, bringing to fruition over ten years of negotiations with the New Jersey Legislature and Board of Higher Education to permit comprehensive institutions to attain university designation. Stockton State College honored him with the Lh.D. in 1990 for his initiative in establishing New Jersey’s first Governors School. He was named President Emeritus in 1993. After six years of semi-retirement from 1993 to 1999, during which time he served as a consultant to several colleges and universities, he was invited to join the Office of University Development of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During his time with UNC-CH he initiated the creation of the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies and was deeply involved in securing over $5 million is support for the Center. He retired from the University in January 2006. Monmouth University awarded him an honorary doctorate of education in 2005. Magill has been active in American higher education throughout his career. While serving as president of Monmouth, he served on commissions of the American Council on Education, as a member and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Association on Independent Colleges and Universities of New Jersey, as a member of the Accreditation Task Force of the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business, and the Presidents Commission of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. In retirement he was a member of the UNC-CH Retired Faculty Association and served on its Executive Committee. In 2006 Magill married Eunice Miller Brock. Eunice has two sons, Cliff and Doug, and two granddaughters, Alanna and Lily Brock. Her only daughter, Melinda, died in 2010 at the age of 53. Magill has three grown children and two granddaughters. His son, Sam, Jr., is a cellist with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and has an active solo and chamber music career. He is married to Lucian Rinaldo who is a professional flautist. His daughter, Kate, is president of Sophie K Entertainment and is married to John Walters who was associated with the State Theater at Lincoln Center. His youngest daughter, Suzanne, is married to Dr. Daniel Weintraub, professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. They have two daughters, Sophia and Phoebe. Suzanne is engaged professionally in recording books for professionals in health-related fields and the law. Magill has had a life-long interest in track and field, national and state politics and classical music. As an undergraduate at UNC-CH he was a champion two-miler, holding the Southern Conference Outdoor Two Mile record from 1949-55, president of the University YMCA and a member of St. Anthony Hall, the Order of the Grail and the Order of the

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