Carl Mcclellan Hill

Early life Carl McClellan Hill was born July 27, 1907, in Norfolk, Virginia, to William Franklin and Sarah Rowe Hill. He earned a B.Sc. degree in organic chemistry from Hampton Institute in 1931.

During the 1930s, Hill taught science at the George P. Phenix Laboratory School, a high school associated with the Hampton Institute.

Hill received his M.Sc. degree in organic chemistry from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in 1935. Denied admission at the University of Virginia, Hill applied successfully for a Rosenwald Fellowship to complete his doctorate at Cornell. He received $1,500 and was awarded his Ph.D. in organic chemistry by Cornell in 1941.

Career Carl McClellan Hill worked as an assistant professor of chemistry at North Carolina A&T University beginning in 1941. Under his direction, the college was formally raised to university status, and renamed Kentucky State University in 1972. Hill also pushed for increased integration, increasing white enrollment at the historically black school. Hill would remain at KSU until retiring in 1975, the second-longest presidential term at KSU at that time. The Hills collaborated on textbooks such as General College Chemistry (1944) with Myron B. Towns and Experiments in Organic Chemistry (1954).

Awards and honors Hill received an honorary doctor of laws degree from the University of Kentucky in 1966, an honorary doctorate of science from Eastern Kentucky University in 1975, and an honorary doctorate of science from the University of Louisville in 1975. He was named Outstanding Alumnus at Large of Hampton University in 1969. and 1927, In 1970, he married Helen Ware Collins. Among other activities, Carl and Helen were active members of the Virginia Peninsula Rose Society.