Samuel Reid Spencer, Jr. 1919–2013

A member of the Class of 1940, Sam Spencer’s active association with Davidson spanned almost 80 years. His scholarship and courtly manners were supported by a keen sense of diplomacy, a kind sense of humor and an uncanny ability to remember names going back to his earliest Davidson days. As president from 1968 to 1983, those attributes helped him successfully manage some of the most challenging changes in the college’s history.

“Sam Spencer was, in a single word, a giant. He was a man of visionary leadership at a pivotal time in the life of Davidson College,” said President Carol Quillen. “For me, as for so many in the college family and far beyond, he was a ready exemplar of attributes we need most in the world today. He was a man of grace, of humility, and of quiet and unwavering moral courage.”

During Spencer’s presidency, Davidson witnessed the introduction of co-education, the active recruiting and admission of minority students, the establishment of a self-selection social system for fraternities, a reevaluation of the college’s relationship with the Presbyterian Church, and student unrest over the Vietnam War. Through it all, Spencer led a new emphasis on faculty research, more and deeper foreign study opportunities for students, and an increase in the college’s endowment from $13.8 million to $30 million. Enrollment during his tenure increased from 1,000 to 1,350.

The major building project of Spencer’s administration was construction of the E.H. Little Library, which opened in 1974. He also approved student creation of WDAV as a carrier-current student radio station in 1969, and led its evolution toward a classical music format and professional operation beginning in 1978.

“Sam has been a personal role model for me since 1955, when I was a naïve freshman and he was Davidson’s dean of students,” said President Emeritus John W. Kuykendall ’59 (1984–97). “The fears I felt because of the nature of his job were quickly eclipsed by the warmth of his caring presence among us. Brilliant but approachable, principled but sensitive to others, tough but gentle: Sam Spencer has been Davidson’s ‘man for all seasons.’”

Registrar Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of German and Humanities Hansford Epes ’61 also lauded Spencer’s leadership in the context of rapidly changing times.

“President Spencer recognized that Davidson had a larger role to play than the one with which we had become somewhat comfortable,” said Epes. “He took on almost all constituencies at one time or another in order to do what he believed to be right—a determination that has been to the college’s immeasurable benefit.”

Born in 1919 in Rock Hill, S.C., Spencer spent much of his youth in Columbia, S.C. At Davidson, he was elected president of the student body and graduated as a Phi Beta Kappa summa cum laude history major, as well as salutatorian. He also served as cadet major and executive officer of the ROTC Corps. He was commissioned into the Army infantry in 1940 soon after graduation. ROTC assigned him to teach military science at Davidson to student cadets until 1943. He served in 1944-45 in Europe as an intelligence officer with the Eighth Air Force. At the end of World War II he was released from active duty as a major.

He then entered Harvard University graduate school, where he earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in history. At Harvard, he met Ava Clark, whom he married in Abingdon, Va., in 1948. In 1951, Spencer returned to Davidson to serve as assistant to President John R. Cunningham. After three years, he was named dean of students and associate professor of history, advancing to full professor in 1955.