North American Scholar
HARRIS, Carl Vernon
- Date of Birth (YYYY-MM-DD): 1922-12-29
- Born City: Morganton
- Born State/Country: NC
- Parents: Asbury David & Laura Clark H.
- Date of Death (YYYY-MM-DD): 2011-08-09
- Death City: Winston-Salem
- Death State/Country: NC
- Married: Lucille Sawyer, 1955
- Education:
Asso. in Arts Mars Hill Coll., 1942; A.B. Wake Forest, 1944; B.D. Yale, 1946; S.T.M, 1947; Ph.D. (Classics) Duke, 1952.
- Professional Experience:
Instr. Gk. & relig. Mars Hill Coll., 1947-50; asst. prof. relig. & soc. stud. East Carolina Coll., 1953-54; asso. prof. relig. & Gk., U. Dubuque, 1954-56; asso. prof. class. lang. & lit., Wake Forest 1956-68; prof. 1968-89; Reinhardt Award for Distinguished Teaching, Wake Forest, 1990.
- Dissertation:
“Origen of Alexandria’s Interpretation of the Teacher’s Function in the Early Christian Hierarchy and Community” (Duke, 1952).
- Notes:
Carl Harris was gentle and dedicated professor of Greek who devoted over thirty years to his alma mater, Wake Forest, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. As early as his first years as a student at Mars Hill College he received a medal for “scholarship, character and manners,” qualities he maintained throughout his life. He brought the values of an earlier generation to he classroom, equally concerned with the totality of the students’ development, not just their rote learning of tables and recitation of facts, but their growth as morally responsible members of society. His colleague James Powell said, “The level of devotion to his students was quite remarkable. He embodied a lot of the old Wake Forest in that.” His fellow student Edwin G. Wilson, who became Provost at Wake Forest, recalled that “he found beauty in the Greek classics, and he believed in the presence of beauty and love in his own life.”
- Sources:
DAS 6th ed., 3:195., Oliver Phillips
- Author: Ward W. Briggs, Jr.
