Inside Furman March, 2001

Ray and Lib Nanney have served Furman a combined 75 years

Lib Nanney joined Furman in 1967 because she wanted to spend more time with her husband.

And this May, the Nanneys will be retiring for the same reason. No longer burdened with classes and administrative duties, the couple will have more time to do what they enjoy most - spending time with each other.

And Furman won't be quite the same. The Nanneys, an institution here, have worked at the university for a combined 75 years.

Ray, a computer science professor, joined the faculty in 1960. Lib is the longtime secretary of the psychology department. Each has received one of Furman's highest honors. Ray received the Alester G. Furman, Jr., and Janie Earle Furman Award for Meritorious Teaching in 1981. Two years ago, Lib was the recipient of the Chiles-Harrill Award.

Theirs was a relationship sparked during a 1953 Fourth of July picnic at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Both were attending summer school at UNC. Ray was completing his final degree requirements while Lib, an undergraduate at the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina (now UNC-Greensboro) had enrolled at Chapel Hill to "see what a man looked like."

As Lib describes it, she met him at the picnic where he was playing bridge with her roommate. Later they talked for hours. The next night they dated and then saw each other almost continuously for a week and a half. By that time, they had decided to get married; six months later, they had the wedding in Chapel Hill at the same church that had sponsored the picnic.

Since then, the soft-spoken academic and the self-assured coed have been inseparable.

After graduation, Ray worked for DuPont in Camden, S.C., and was then drafted into the Army. While stationed at Fort Jackson, S.C., he decided to continue his education at the University of South Carolina, where he earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1960.

As a teaching assistant at USC, Ray discovered his love for helping students and for academia. Don Kubler, a visiting chemistry professor who would later teach at Furman, discovered the young graduate student and passed his name along to his colleagues at Furman. Ray soon received a telephone call and was invited to campus for an interview.

His first impressions of Furman were of the sapling oak trees and McAlister Auditorium, which was under construction. He joined the faculty without considering another teaching post and taught his first class in the fall of 1960 in what is now Plyler Hall 111.

The son of textile workers, the quiet professor quickly became known for his keen intellect and strong work ethic. Ray took his first sabbatical in 1977 - 17 years after joining the university - and has taught a full load each term. He has also been an instructor for more than 33 different courses, including 18 courses that were being taught for the first time at Furman.

Working to solve a theoretical problem in chemistry in the mid-1960s, Nanney became fascinated with the emerging field of computer technology after he taught himself to write a computer program that would help him solve the problem in seconds.

"It took the computer about 90 seconds to do the problem that I had been working on all summer," he says. "I thought that this would be more fun than chemistry."

In 1967, he began teaching computer science courses and was named the first director of Furman's new computer center - two full-time jobs. It was a hectic period in his life. Teaching classes, writing computer programs and overseeing a new department often kept him working at Furman during the day and late into the night at home.

"I never saw him except when he was dead tired," says Lib. She decided to look for a part-time position at Furman "so we could see each other. At work, we could at least have lunch together."

Bill Brantley, a friend of Lib's, offered her a part-time position as a secretary in the physics department. In 1970, her typing skills and attention to detail impressed Charles Brewer. When he was named chair of the psychology department in 1972, he hired Lib as the departmental secretary, a position she has held ever since.

By 1973, long hours at work began to affect Ray's health, and he stepped down as director of the computer center but continued to teach full time.

With retirement just months away, ask the Nanneys what they will treasure the most about their time at Furman and they will answer in unison: "the students."

Lib will remember especially those to whom she gave emotional support when they came to her with their personal problems or academic dilemmas. Ray will remember helping students find out that they can master a subject and that they have capabilities they don't even realize.

"It is safe to say that we have helped many students personally and professionally," says Ray. "It's all been for the students. There's no way we'd work this hard just for money."

Lib Nanney Fund established

For nearly 30 years Lib Nanney quietly helped needy students when they didn't have enough money to buy books, buy a plane ticket for a graduate school interview, go to the dentist or pay for a car repair.

Often she would loan them enough money to help them out of a financial situation, but she never expected repayment.

When Lib retires later this year, though, her giving will not stop. Established by the psychology department and her daughter and son-in-law, Lynn and Mark Roosevelt (both Furman alumni), the "Lib Nanney Fund" will continue to support financially strapped students who need a few dollars to get them out of a pinch.

Faculty members and the Roosevelts have already donated to the fund. Letters to select alumni seeking donations will be mailed this spring, says psychology chair Gil Einstein, who is coordinating the effort.

"The students really love Lib," says Einstein. "And she has loved and supported them through the years. This fund will continue that support in her name. It is a fitting and lasting tribute to all that Lib has meant to our students and to the psychology department."

For more information about the Lib Nanney Fund, call Einstein at 294-3214.