In 1961, an ambitious young man graduated from North Carolina College at Durham.

Forty-seven years later, Clarence G. Williams returns to Durham after dedicating his life to educational institutions like Hampton University, the University of Connecticut and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Williams has fond memories of what is now called N.C. Central University.

“NCCU was one of the best things that ever happened to me,” Williams said. “It’s the heart of whatever I am today.”

Williams’ bachelor’s degree in history was the first step toward a life in academia.

Growing up in Goldsboro when the community was extremely segregated, he got a glance at the Eagle college life during a high school basketball game.

“We came to play our state championship at McDougal Gym,” he said.

Although his team lost, he remembered the experience and was eager to enroll at NCCU after graduating. A high school adviser who was an NCCU graduate also pushed him to apply.

During the second semester of his freshman year, he met his future wife, Mildred Cogdell.

Williams’ most memorable academic experience at NCCU is being mentored in history and social science by Helen G. Edmunds, for whom the history building is named today.

“She was my mentor up until the time that she passed away,” Williams said. He even had the opportunity to bring her to MIT to teach while he was there.

After graduating from NCCU in 1961, Williams moved to Washington, D.C., and applied for several teaching positions.

While waiting to hear from possible employers, he worked as a dishwasher.

“My first job after NCCU was really a big letdown,” he said. “I thought I wasn’t going to get a [teaching] job because I had applied and hadn’t heard anything.”

He eventually got a job at an all-black high school in Williamsburg, Va., during a time when the school system was still segregated.

“It was a very good experience in the sense that I learned how to work with young black folks,” said Williams.

During his time as a high school teacher, his wife worked at Hampton Institute (now Hampton University).

“It turns out that they needed an assistant dean of men at Hampton,” he said. “My wife told them that they ought to look at me,” he said, and he was hired as assistant dean of men.

In this position, he was put in charge of a residence hall with 257 young men. There, he developed extracurricular programs.

He also counseled students and taught seniors post-graduation life skills.

“Hampton is where I learned the values in terms of education and how to deal with people,” he said.

“I lived in an apartment in the residence hall with my wife.”

After leaving Hampton with a master’s degree and experience as an assistant dean, Williams went to the University of Connecticut to work in the school’s counseling and testing center and to pursue a degree in counseling education.

At U Conn, he noticed a difference in his environment immediately.

“We saw virtually no black folks,” he said.

This was the first time in his working life that he had been the only black person. He said the experience helped him deal with other nationalities.

During a summer at U Conn, Williams was placed in charge of a summer program in which the university brought in under-represented minorities (mainly black and Latino students) from the state who may not have met the requirements necessary to enter as freshmen.

The summer program assisted these students with study skills and helped them deal with problems related to their transition into a predominantly white institution.

In 1974, Williams finished his Ph.D. and took a position at MIT as an assistant dean who would spearhead the school’s effort to increase the number and retention of minority graduate students in MIT’s 23 departments.

After doubling the number of minority graduate students within a year and a half, Williams was promoted to special assistant to the president for minority affairs.

Williams also brought black faculty members into the institution, and began to counsel both students and faculty.

In 1980, after a number of white males complained that they didn’t have anyone who was close to the president to bring grievances to, Williams’ title became special assistant to the president.

This position allowed Williams to address any faculty member with an issue, regardless of his or her racial background.

Williams also taught a course on race relations at MIT for 13 years, until his retirement two years ago.

“That’s one of the things that I really consider as one of my major contributions to the institution,” he said.

“I think that at the end of the course almost every year, everyone hated to leave because they enjoyed each other so much,” said Williams.

“Here I had spent nearly 30 years to try and increase the number of black faculty, students and administrators,” he said.

“I didn’t want to leave that institution without laying out a history so that black folks, particularly, could have something to read and have some sense about where we have come from.”

“College should enable you to be able to come to grips with what you really enjoy doing,” he said.

“You can learn these things in a safe environment. That’s what the university experience is all about.”

When asked what black students could do to further themselves, he said: “Over the years I think that one of the things that we have lost is the love and respect for one another. I think we have to start there.”

Williams and his wife are now retired and living in Durham, close to all the places they love in North Carolina, including NCCU, where they met 51 years ago.