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Created page with "{{Infobox person | name=George Thomas Walker, Sr.<br> (President of the University of Louisiana at Monroe, 1958-1976) | birth_date=March 2, 1913 | birth_plac= Wyatt C..."
{{Infobox person
| name=George Thomas Walker, Sr.<br>
(President of the University of Louisiana at Monroe, 1958-1976)
| birth_date=March 2, 1913
| birth_plac= Wyatt Community<br>
Jackson Parish, [[Louisiana]], [[United States|USA]]
| death_date=June 17, 2011 (aged 98)
| death_place= [[Monroe, Louisiana|Monroe]], Ouachita Parish<br>Louisiana
|alma_mater=[[Northwestern State University]]<br>
[[Louisiana State University]]
|occupation=President of [[University of Louisiana at Monroe]]
|spouse= Mary Ellen Neal Walker (married 1938–2002, her death)
|children=George T. Walker, Jr.<br>
Ellen Claire Walker Stephenson<br>
Five grandchildren
|footnotes=
}}
'''George Thomas Walker, Sr.''' (March 2, 1913 – June 17, 2011), was from 1958 to 1976 the president of the [[University of Louisiana at Monroe]], known first as Northeast Louisiana State College and then as Northeast Louisiana State University, located in [[Monroe, Louisiana|Monroe]] in northeastern [[Louisiana]].
==Background==
Walker was born in the Wyatt Community of Jackson Parish near the Winn Parish line in north Louisiana, the second youngest of nine sons and two daughters of William Thomas Walker and the former Mary Elizabeth "Lizzie" Stovall (1877–1951). At the time of his mother's death in 1951, the obituary lists George Walker as a dean at [[Northwestern State University]] in [[Natchitoches, Louisiana|Natchitoches]] and his youngest brother, [[William Stewart Walker]] as a [[lieutenant colonel]] in [[Vienna]], [[Austria]]. Another brother, Edgar Lee "Ed" Walker (1901–1972), was a [[football]] coach for the [[University of Mississippi]] Rebels at Oxford, [[Mississippi]], who led his team to an early Orange Bow] competition.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.transportcemetery.com/Walker_MES.html|title=Mary Elizabeth "Lizzie" Stovall|publisher=Transport Cemetery records, Dodson, Louisiana|accessdate=July 19, 2009}}</ref>
A Walker cousin, [[Morgan W. Walker, Sr.]], was an [[Alexandria, Louisiana|Alexandria]] businessman who was president and founder of Continental Trailways bus lines.<ref>Obituary of Morgan W. Walker, Sr., ''Winn Parish Enterprise News,'' February 23, 1983</ref>
In 1935, Walker received his Bachelor of Science degree from NSU, then known as Northwestern State College. In 1936, he earned a master's degree in accounting at [[Louisiana State University]] in [[Baton Rouge]]. He then began his teaching career in Monroe at the then Northeast Junior College. Thereafter, he was a member of the faculty of Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond in Tangipahoa Parish and the University of Louisiana at [[Lafayette]]. From 1941 to 1943, he was the state supervisor of business education. From 1943 to 1945, he was personnel director for the Port of Embarkation in [[New Orleans]].<ref name=obit>{{cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thenewsstar/obituary.aspx?n=george-thomas-walker&pid=152392279|title=George T. Walker|publisher=''The Monroe News-Star''|accessdate=July 6, 2011}}</ref>
==Academic career==
After World War II, Walker earned his [[Ph.D.]] from LSU in business administration and accounting, with a minor field in economics. At the time, he was also the assistant to the dean of the LSU Junior Division. After completion of his doctoral studies, Walker became dean of applied arts and sciences at NSU, thereafter adding to those duties from 1954 to 1958 the position of NSU dean of administration.<ref name=obit/>
On July 1, 1958, Walker began his service as only the fourth president of ULM. Under Walker, the university grew in enrollment, physical plant, and academic standing. The enrollment increased from barely 2,000 in the late 1950s to more than 9,000 by the middle 1970s.<ref name=walker>{{cite web|url=http://www.kedm.org/audio/remembering-university-president-dr-george-t-walker-ulm-forum-6-24-11|title=Remembering a University President: Dr. George T. Walker|publisher=kedm.org|accessdate=July 6, 2011}}</ref>
He worked to increase the quality and the compensation of the faculty. Under Walker ULM added more than a dozen academic buildings and residence halls to the campus.<ref name=walker/> These structures included Garrett, Hanna, Sugar, and Strauss halls, Schulze Dining Hall, the Business Administration Building, the Band Building, Sandel Library, Fant-Ewing Coliseum, Heard Tennis Stadium, Brown Stadium, Malone Stadium (opened 1978), the Lake C. Oxford Natatorium (completed in 1978), several residence halls, and the Anna Gray Noe Alumni Center, named for the wife of former [[Governor]] James Albert Noe, Sr. (1890-1976).<ref name=builder/>
The then NLU became the largest university in North Louisiana in terms of both enrollment and state appropriations.<ref name=obit/> Among the universities under the Louisiana Higher Education Board of Trustees, NLU had the greatest percent of faculty holding terminal degrees and more nationally accredited academic programs.<ref name=obit/>
In 1961, under Walker's leadership ULM offered its first doctoral degree, the Ph.D. in pharmacy. The Ed.D.](since renamed Ph.D.) in education followed in 1967.<ref name=builder/>
In addition to academic growth under his leadership, numerous support groups came to fruition: the Northeast Louisiana Concerts Association, NLU Foundation, NLU Athletic Scholarship Foundation, and the Northeast Louisiana Land Corporation.<ref name=obit/> The land corporation was created in 1965 with local business leaders with the goal of procuring land for university expansion.<ref name=builder/>
Walker's tenure at NLU corresponded in part with that of [[F. Jay Taylor]], the president from 1962 to 1987 of nearby [[Louisiana Tech University]] in [[Ruston, Louisiana|Ruston]]. Under Taylor's tenure, Louisiana Tech grew in similar fashion to that of ULM under Walker. Taylor died a month before the passing of Walker.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/shreveporttimes/obituary.aspx?n=f-jay-taylor&pid=151095320|title=Dr. F. Jay Taylor|publisher=''The Shreveport Times''|date=May 17, 2011|accessdate=May 17, 2011}}</ref>
The tenures of Walker and Taylor also corresponded to that of [[Arnold Kilpatrick]], president of Northwestern State University from 1966 to 1978.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://northwesternalumni.com/s/859/index.aspx?id=859&gid=1&pgid=252&cid=1141&ecid=1141&crid=0&calpgid=61&calcid=791|title=Home Named in Honor of Former NSU President|publisher=Northwesternalumni.com|accessdate=May 22, 2009}}</ref> During this same period the [[African American]] Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones (1902-1982) was president of historically black Grambling State University in Grambling in Lincoln Parish west of Ruston.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nytimes.com/1982/04/11/obituaries/ralph-we-jones-78-ex-head-of-grambling.html|title=Ralph W. E. Jones, 79, Ex-Head of Grambling|publisher=''[[The New York Times]]''|date=April 11, 1982|accessdate=July 6, 2011}}</ref>
==Family and legacy==
In retirement Walker remained among ULM's civic boosters and was a familiar face at University of Louisiana at Monroe Warhawks football games and other university events.<ref name=walker/>
Walker authored numerous academic and professional journal articles as well as several books on accounting and business education.<ref name=obit/> Of his five copyrighted books, two were written during his retirement, ''The Building of a University'' (1991), which examines the early years of ULM, and the biographical ''Emy-Lou Biedenharn: Her Life and Legacy'' (1999).<ref name=obit/>[[Emy-Lou Biedenharn]] was a world-renowned contralto from Monroe and the daughter of [[Joseph A. Biedenharn]], the first bottler of [[Coca-Cola]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bmuseum.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=53|title=Biedenharn Museum & Gardens|publisher=bmuseum.org|accessdate=July 6, 2011}}</ref>
In 1938, Walker married the former Mary Ellen Neal (1911–2002), his college sweetheart. They had a son, George T. Walker, Jr., of Monroe and a daughter, Ellen Claire Stephenson of Lancaster, [[Pennsylvania]]. Walker died of a lengthy illness at the age of ninety-eight. In addition to his children, Walker was survived by five grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.<ref name=obit/>
In 1997, the Louisiana Board of Regents awarded Walker its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award for his ongoing dedication to higher education. He is also honored by the Mary Ellen and George Thomas Walker Scholarship Endowment through ULM.<ref name=builder>{{cite web|url=http://www.ulm.edu/universityrelations/news/june11/walker.html|title=Remembering Dr. George T. Walker: University Builder|publisher=ulm.edu|accessdate=July 6, 2011}}</ref>
A memorial service was held on July 9, 2011, at the First [[Presbyterian]] Church of Monroe, where Walker was an elder.<ref name=obit/> His hometown newspaper, ''The Monroe News-Star'' paid tribute to Walker on the day before his memorial service:
<blockquote>
is legacy is both complex and far-reaching. While most associate him with the physical university here, in truth his greatest influence is to be found within the countless lives that were changed by his example. His abiding concern for the welfare of others, his courage in action, his quiet support when friends and colleagues needed it most, his belief in the empowerment that comes through education, his charity of spirit — these will live on through the actions of those who knew him."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/20110709/NEWS01/107090328/Walker-s-legacy-changed-lives?odyssey=tab|title=Walker's legacy is changed lives|publisher=''The Monroe News-Star''|accessdate=July 9, 2011}}</ref></blockquote>
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Walker, George T.}}
[[Category:Louisiana People]]
[[Category:Educators]]
[[Category:Professors]]
[[Category:American Authors]]
[[Category:Presbyterians]]
| name=George Thomas Walker, Sr.<br>
(President of the University of Louisiana at Monroe, 1958-1976)
| birth_date=March 2, 1913
| birth_plac= Wyatt Community<br>
Jackson Parish, [[Louisiana]], [[United States|USA]]
| death_date=June 17, 2011 (aged 98)
| death_place= [[Monroe, Louisiana|Monroe]], Ouachita Parish<br>Louisiana
|alma_mater=[[Northwestern State University]]<br>
[[Louisiana State University]]
|occupation=President of [[University of Louisiana at Monroe]]
|spouse= Mary Ellen Neal Walker (married 1938–2002, her death)
|children=George T. Walker, Jr.<br>
Ellen Claire Walker Stephenson<br>
Five grandchildren
|footnotes=
}}
'''George Thomas Walker, Sr.''' (March 2, 1913 – June 17, 2011), was from 1958 to 1976 the president of the [[University of Louisiana at Monroe]], known first as Northeast Louisiana State College and then as Northeast Louisiana State University, located in [[Monroe, Louisiana|Monroe]] in northeastern [[Louisiana]].
==Background==
Walker was born in the Wyatt Community of Jackson Parish near the Winn Parish line in north Louisiana, the second youngest of nine sons and two daughters of William Thomas Walker and the former Mary Elizabeth "Lizzie" Stovall (1877–1951). At the time of his mother's death in 1951, the obituary lists George Walker as a dean at [[Northwestern State University]] in [[Natchitoches, Louisiana|Natchitoches]] and his youngest brother, [[William Stewart Walker]] as a [[lieutenant colonel]] in [[Vienna]], [[Austria]]. Another brother, Edgar Lee "Ed" Walker (1901–1972), was a [[football]] coach for the [[University of Mississippi]] Rebels at Oxford, [[Mississippi]], who led his team to an early Orange Bow] competition.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.transportcemetery.com/Walker_MES.html|title=Mary Elizabeth "Lizzie" Stovall|publisher=Transport Cemetery records, Dodson, Louisiana|accessdate=July 19, 2009}}</ref>
A Walker cousin, [[Morgan W. Walker, Sr.]], was an [[Alexandria, Louisiana|Alexandria]] businessman who was president and founder of Continental Trailways bus lines.<ref>Obituary of Morgan W. Walker, Sr., ''Winn Parish Enterprise News,'' February 23, 1983</ref>
In 1935, Walker received his Bachelor of Science degree from NSU, then known as Northwestern State College. In 1936, he earned a master's degree in accounting at [[Louisiana State University]] in [[Baton Rouge]]. He then began his teaching career in Monroe at the then Northeast Junior College. Thereafter, he was a member of the faculty of Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond in Tangipahoa Parish and the University of Louisiana at [[Lafayette]]. From 1941 to 1943, he was the state supervisor of business education. From 1943 to 1945, he was personnel director for the Port of Embarkation in [[New Orleans]].<ref name=obit>{{cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thenewsstar/obituary.aspx?n=george-thomas-walker&pid=152392279|title=George T. Walker|publisher=''The Monroe News-Star''|accessdate=July 6, 2011}}</ref>
==Academic career==
After World War II, Walker earned his [[Ph.D.]] from LSU in business administration and accounting, with a minor field in economics. At the time, he was also the assistant to the dean of the LSU Junior Division. After completion of his doctoral studies, Walker became dean of applied arts and sciences at NSU, thereafter adding to those duties from 1954 to 1958 the position of NSU dean of administration.<ref name=obit/>
On July 1, 1958, Walker began his service as only the fourth president of ULM. Under Walker, the university grew in enrollment, physical plant, and academic standing. The enrollment increased from barely 2,000 in the late 1950s to more than 9,000 by the middle 1970s.<ref name=walker>{{cite web|url=http://www.kedm.org/audio/remembering-university-president-dr-george-t-walker-ulm-forum-6-24-11|title=Remembering a University President: Dr. George T. Walker|publisher=kedm.org|accessdate=July 6, 2011}}</ref>
He worked to increase the quality and the compensation of the faculty. Under Walker ULM added more than a dozen academic buildings and residence halls to the campus.<ref name=walker/> These structures included Garrett, Hanna, Sugar, and Strauss halls, Schulze Dining Hall, the Business Administration Building, the Band Building, Sandel Library, Fant-Ewing Coliseum, Heard Tennis Stadium, Brown Stadium, Malone Stadium (opened 1978), the Lake C. Oxford Natatorium (completed in 1978), several residence halls, and the Anna Gray Noe Alumni Center, named for the wife of former [[Governor]] James Albert Noe, Sr. (1890-1976).<ref name=builder/>
The then NLU became the largest university in North Louisiana in terms of both enrollment and state appropriations.<ref name=obit/> Among the universities under the Louisiana Higher Education Board of Trustees, NLU had the greatest percent of faculty holding terminal degrees and more nationally accredited academic programs.<ref name=obit/>
In 1961, under Walker's leadership ULM offered its first doctoral degree, the Ph.D. in pharmacy. The Ed.D.](since renamed Ph.D.) in education followed in 1967.<ref name=builder/>
In addition to academic growth under his leadership, numerous support groups came to fruition: the Northeast Louisiana Concerts Association, NLU Foundation, NLU Athletic Scholarship Foundation, and the Northeast Louisiana Land Corporation.<ref name=obit/> The land corporation was created in 1965 with local business leaders with the goal of procuring land for university expansion.<ref name=builder/>
Walker's tenure at NLU corresponded in part with that of [[F. Jay Taylor]], the president from 1962 to 1987 of nearby [[Louisiana Tech University]] in [[Ruston, Louisiana|Ruston]]. Under Taylor's tenure, Louisiana Tech grew in similar fashion to that of ULM under Walker. Taylor died a month before the passing of Walker.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/shreveporttimes/obituary.aspx?n=f-jay-taylor&pid=151095320|title=Dr. F. Jay Taylor|publisher=''The Shreveport Times''|date=May 17, 2011|accessdate=May 17, 2011}}</ref>
The tenures of Walker and Taylor also corresponded to that of [[Arnold Kilpatrick]], president of Northwestern State University from 1966 to 1978.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://northwesternalumni.com/s/859/index.aspx?id=859&gid=1&pgid=252&cid=1141&ecid=1141&crid=0&calpgid=61&calcid=791|title=Home Named in Honor of Former NSU President|publisher=Northwesternalumni.com|accessdate=May 22, 2009}}</ref> During this same period the [[African American]] Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones (1902-1982) was president of historically black Grambling State University in Grambling in Lincoln Parish west of Ruston.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nytimes.com/1982/04/11/obituaries/ralph-we-jones-78-ex-head-of-grambling.html|title=Ralph W. E. Jones, 79, Ex-Head of Grambling|publisher=''[[The New York Times]]''|date=April 11, 1982|accessdate=July 6, 2011}}</ref>
==Family and legacy==
In retirement Walker remained among ULM's civic boosters and was a familiar face at University of Louisiana at Monroe Warhawks football games and other university events.<ref name=walker/>
Walker authored numerous academic and professional journal articles as well as several books on accounting and business education.<ref name=obit/> Of his five copyrighted books, two were written during his retirement, ''The Building of a University'' (1991), which examines the early years of ULM, and the biographical ''Emy-Lou Biedenharn: Her Life and Legacy'' (1999).<ref name=obit/>[[Emy-Lou Biedenharn]] was a world-renowned contralto from Monroe and the daughter of [[Joseph A. Biedenharn]], the first bottler of [[Coca-Cola]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bmuseum.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=53|title=Biedenharn Museum & Gardens|publisher=bmuseum.org|accessdate=July 6, 2011}}</ref>
In 1938, Walker married the former Mary Ellen Neal (1911–2002), his college sweetheart. They had a son, George T. Walker, Jr., of Monroe and a daughter, Ellen Claire Stephenson of Lancaster, [[Pennsylvania]]. Walker died of a lengthy illness at the age of ninety-eight. In addition to his children, Walker was survived by five grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.<ref name=obit/>
In 1997, the Louisiana Board of Regents awarded Walker its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award for his ongoing dedication to higher education. He is also honored by the Mary Ellen and George Thomas Walker Scholarship Endowment through ULM.<ref name=builder>{{cite web|url=http://www.ulm.edu/universityrelations/news/june11/walker.html|title=Remembering Dr. George T. Walker: University Builder|publisher=ulm.edu|accessdate=July 6, 2011}}</ref>
A memorial service was held on July 9, 2011, at the First [[Presbyterian]] Church of Monroe, where Walker was an elder.<ref name=obit/> His hometown newspaper, ''The Monroe News-Star'' paid tribute to Walker on the day before his memorial service:
<blockquote>
is legacy is both complex and far-reaching. While most associate him with the physical university here, in truth his greatest influence is to be found within the countless lives that were changed by his example. His abiding concern for the welfare of others, his courage in action, his quiet support when friends and colleagues needed it most, his belief in the empowerment that comes through education, his charity of spirit — these will live on through the actions of those who knew him."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/20110709/NEWS01/107090328/Walker-s-legacy-changed-lives?odyssey=tab|title=Walker's legacy is changed lives|publisher=''The Monroe News-Star''|accessdate=July 9, 2011}}</ref></blockquote>
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Walker, George T.}}
[[Category:Louisiana People]]
[[Category:Educators]]
[[Category:Professors]]
[[Category:American Authors]]
[[Category:Presbyterians]]