Nan Segar King, '61, led one of America's best high schools

By Julie Sowell

Supporting quality teaching and preventing teacher burn-out are issues in public education about which Nan Segar King, ’61 has some insight. After a 38-year career with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) as one of the system’s outstanding educators, she retired recently with a deep sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.

"I had a terrific career with Chicago Public Schools,"says King. "It was so rewarding, so refreshing. I remember when I was in the classroom, there were so many days that I didn’t get things across the way I wanted, but other days when I knew I was hitting, and I would leave school saying ‘Yes! This has been a great day!’ I had more great days than I didn’t and I don’t regret any of it."

More than 20 of her 38 years King spent at Whitney Young Magnet High School. Opened in 1975 with a focus on professions in science and health, and the performing arts, Whitney Young has developed into Chicago’s premier high school, offering a challenging college preparatory curriculum. Its 2,200 students, 40% of whom are African American, 23% Caucasian, and 17% Latino, Asian and American Indian, are among the city’s brightest, and many go on to the nation’s top colleges and universities. From the class of 2001, three are now enrolled at Harvard and one is a freshman at Yale, the first in her family to attend college. In 1999, Whitney Young Magnet H.S. was cited in a nation-wide survey as one of "America’s Best High Schools" by Newsweek magazine.

King values her association with Whitney Young, and the school appreciates her as well. "King is a major reason for Whitney Young becoming and staying one of the top high schools in the country," says current principal Joyce Kenner.

Current principal Joyce Kenner, who worked closely with King when the two of them were assistant principals during the 1990’s, says King played a big role in the school’s rise to its present status. "Nan is a major reason for Whitney Young becoming and staying one of the top high schools in the country," says Kenner. "She put in a lot of long days and was always very organized in her approach to things. She was successful because she focused on both academic excellence and achievement for all students."

"People call me aggressive. I don’t know whether that’s better than assertive or not, but I kind of get things done," King jokes, acknowledging her reputation. "That’s the only real way, you know. You just go and do it."

King has been getting things done since her grade school days, excelling as a student and making an early decision to become a teacher. She grew up not far from Berea in the Davistown community near Lancaster, Ky. The county’s schools were segregated at that time, and she attended Mason School, Lancaster’s high school for African Americans. Graduating as class valedictorian in 1957, she decided to go to Berea College at the recommendation of her high school principal. "My father had recently died, and financing College was an issue for my family," says King. "She also thought I would do well academically."

When King enrolled at Berea that fall, two former schoolmates from Mason, Charlotte Welch, Cx ‘60 and Carl Boatwright, ’62, were attending Berea. However, King was one of only nine African Americans in her freshman class.

“Berea had a tremendous impact on my life,"she says. "Probably more than anything, it opened my eyes to a kind of cross-cultural awareness. I had attended a segregated school and it was quite an experience getting to know people of different ethnic backgrounds. Being at Berea made me look at people differently, because I know there is a sameness in all of us. I also learned that you have to transcend race in deciding what you want to be."

A business education major, King said she was well-taught in the content areas by economics and business professor Hazel Lincoln, with whom she remained in touch for many years after graduating, and education professor Roscoe Buckland, who gave her the philosophical and pedagogical underpinnings so important for effective teaching.

In 1961, King was the first member of her family to graduate from college. Two years later, her sister Josietana Hill, now retired from the Milwaukee Public Schools, also graduated from Berea, followed by niece Dr. Betty Hyatt Olinger in 1969. A member of Berea’s nursing faculty for many years, Olinger is division director for the Kentucky Department of Public Health.

Nan Segar King talks with some of her former colleagues at Chicago's Whitney young Magnet High School.

Following graduation, King moved to Chicago. Her first high school teaching job was at Crane High School, on the city’s west side, where she taught business for 12 years. While discipline is often assumed to be a problem in an inner-city school, King says it doesn’t have to be that way.

“In all the years I was there, I referred one student to the principal’s office,"King recalls. "If you respect students, they respect you, and they’ll do things for you. Students will do well if you let them know that they can. Everyone can learn and there is intrinsic worth in every individual. That’s my educational philosophy."

It was also at Crane that King was led to seek additional training.

"Students came to me with personal kinds of things. I guess they thought I was a good listener, but I felt I wasn’t equipped to help them," King remembers. In response, she enrolled at Loyola University of Chicago, earning her M.Ed. in guidance and counseling in 1976.

"I always felt I had to give it my best," she says. "Working full-time and getting a masters degree wasn’t easy, but I felt that was what I had to do to feel prepared to deal with my students. That was something else I value about Berea. It gave me the experience of being able to aim for the best and to feel like I was doing the best that I could. I don’t think I would have been as successful as an educator, or as willing to take chances as an educator, if I hadn’t attended Berea."

After transferring from Crane to Whitney Young High School in 1975, King was tapped a year and a half later by the school’s principal for a guidance and counseling job which had opened up, beginning 12 years of what she calls "my forte."

"I loved being a classroom teacher," King said, "but I really loved the more direct contact with students and parents and having an impact on their lives." Whether helping students negotiate high school and survive the mine fields that can derail them, such as suicide and drugs, or helping students prepare for and go on to college or work, King says two things were important to her success as a counselor.

“I’d offer my advice but I never imposed my values on students," King says. "That was important because they usually came around and said ‘You know, Mrs. King, I think that probably is a better idea.’ I also learned to be a terrifically good listener."

King says the need to see each student as an individual is of paramount importance. "Students need direction, they need to know you care, that they’re individuals to you, and that you’re looking out for their best interest,"she says. "It’s not easy in a large high school where there are so many students, but you have to make the time for them all."

Of the many honors she’s received in her career, it’s appreciation from students of which King is most proud. The award she cherishes the most is a plaque from the class of 1980 at Whitney Young that reads "To Mrs. Nan King, the best counselor in the world."

“Every time I see a Whitney Young graduate I give them a hug," she says. "They always tell me ‘Oh, Mrs. King, you haven’t changed a bit.’ And I say ‘Let me give you another hug’ because I know that in all these years I must have changed."

In 1989, King was promoted to assistant principal at Whitney Young, where she was second in command of the school’s operation, working with principal Powhatan Collins, who she calls an outstanding role model and mentor. After seven years she took a position in the division of high school support in the CPS central office. She also put her classroom and administrative experience to work in a state-wide assessment program to help high schools improve teaching and learning.

Retired since 1999, King’s life continues to be full and active. In fact, she says the wide range of interests and activities in which she has always been involved are the secret to her positive outlook on life.

"I have total perspective in terms of where I’m going with my life,"King says. "All of the experiences I’ve had--Berea, my teaching career, my church and civic activities, my family-- they’ve all contributed to who I am today."

Eleven hours a week King works at the library in Oak Park, a suburb west of Chicago, where she lives with her husband Leetheleman and where their son Kevin, now 24 and in college, grew up. In addition to being active in a number of civic organizations, King has been a member of Garfield Park Baptist Church for 37 years. She is a former president of Berea’s Chicago Alumni Chapter and also served a term on Berea’s Alumni Council. Always planning ahead, King is looking forward to a trip to Africa next year.

"I foresee my future as being able to enjoy life as I have been enjoying it," King concludes, "because it has just been too rewarding."