Murphys donate $1M to Huntingdon College

RUSSELLVILLE — Dr. Michael Murphy and Dr. Maureen Murphy recently made a one million dollar donation to Huntingdon College in Montgomery to help with the shortage of teachers in rural areas in Alabama.

The Dr. Michael Derrington Murphy and Dr. Maureen Kendrick Murphy Rural Teacher Education Scholarship Program will fund full scholarships for highachieving and high-need students from rural Alabama with a calling to serve as classroom teachers in their hometown or other rural areas of the state.

In total, 16 students will receive full rides from the program — eight from north Alabama and eight from south Alabama.

“These full scholarships, including room and board, books, tuition and fees will be awarded to outstanding high school students from rural high schools in Franklin, Marion and Lawrence counties in north Alabama, and in Wilcox, Crenshaw and Pike counties in south Alabama,” said Mike Murphy.

“Murphy Scholars will receive a first-class education at Huntingdon College, and, upon graduation from college will be deployed to their hometown or other rural areas to teach K-12 students,” he added. “We are hopeful that our gift will encourage others to support the preparation of our future teachers in Alabama.”

Maureen Murphy said the donation is all about making things better for the students, both hopeful future teachers as well as the students they will impact over the course of their careers.

“When I taught high school at Russellville High School, I really enjoyed the students, and like Mike said recently, people sometimes discount rural communities as not having talent, but there’s a wealth of talent here,” she explained.

She said all the students they’ve taught are “just so outstanding,” noting “a lot of people want to come back home to work in the community, and we wanted to help make that happen. It’s important for us to give back to the communities where we live, and that’s why Mike and I decided to do this, particularly for rural areas.”

Maureen’s history with Huntingdon College goes back 50 years.

“When I was in my junior year of high school, they had a step ahead program where if your ACT was 28 or above, you could go to college during the summer and take 12 semester hours and live in the dorm and eat free,” she said.

“Everything was free, so I took general chemistry I and II during that summer, and I took Old Testament and New Testament, which was a requirement to go to Huntingdon. I was 15 years old, and that’s when I first got interested in becoming a chemistry teacher, because I really loved chemistry that summer,” she added. “That was the summer of 1974.”

For graduate school, she went to the University of Chicago for a postdoc for two years, and then it was time for her first job, which resulted in her becoming one of the first female chemistry professors at the University of Alabama. She stayed there for four years and then decided to get married and have children, and that’s when she moved to Phil Campbell. The doctors raised their children in a farmhouse.

“I taught at Russellville High School for seven years,” she said, “then when my chemistry professor I adored so much at Huntingdon was retiring, he asked me to apply for his job.”

She was hired for the job in 1997 and retired Dec. 31, 2024.

In addition to her long history with the college, Maureen explained she liked the university’s inperson instruction, “especially in the laboratories and in the classrooms,” noting the classes are small and that students get “a lot of individual attention from the professors.”

She said most of the students are from small towns.

Maureen also noted the school has 22 NCAA division three sports, which she explained is the lowest division of NCAA, meaning scholarships are not given for sports there, so those students who go there to play athletics do so just because they love the games.

“Maureen and I are delighted to be able to provide these funds to promote education in Alabama,” her husband, Michael, said of the donation. “We believe that investing in the people who live and work in our rural communities is an essential part of how we create communities that lift all lives. We are hopeful that our gift will encourage others to support the preparation of our future teachers in Alabama.”

Huntingdon College President Anthony Leigh said Alabama’s teacher shortage is well documented, noting the challenge of “identifying high quality teachers in rural parts of Alabama.”

When announcing the gift and acknowledging the Murphys, Leigh said: “Dr. Maureen Murphy and Dr. Michael Murphy are exemplary teachers. Together they have contributed over 100 years to the advancement of chemistry, over 100 years of inspiring students, over 100 years of genuine interest and care for their students, over 100 years of going the second mile in service to their current and former students, and over 100 years of representing all that is good about the profession of education.”

The program will begin in the fall of 2025. Interested students can contact Kasey Pouncey at 334-492-1172, or by email to kpouncey@hawks. huntingdon.edu.

For information about Huntingdon College, go to www.huntingdon.edu.