Nina S. Humphrey

Nina S. Humphrey, Professor Emerita of Art, was one of the original faculty members of Kent State Normal School when she arrived in 1913. Born in Richfield, Ohio, Humphrey was the great-granddaughter of Jonathan Hale, who settled in Bath Township in 1810. The Western Reserve Historical Society now operates the Hale homestead as a living history museum.

Humphrey earned a bachelor’s degree from the Cleveland School of Art and a master’s degree from Western Reserve University. She had been a supervisor of drawing at schools in Oak Hills, Illinois, prior to joining the faculty at Kent State.  

Humphrey, who was an art professor as well as the founding head of the Department of Art, served on the faculty for 38 years. Chestnut Burr yearbooks from 1915 and 1916 note that “her cheery smile and motherly way have routed many cases of homesickness and blues,” “her patience is everlasting and ‘Good will’ seems to be her motto,” and “she has a cheerful word and smile for each and all, and when one is in trouble, she will lend a willing hand of help.” Needless to say, the students enjoyed her classes.

While at Kent State, Humphrey was a faculty advisor to The Woman’s League, a group for all women students, and Phi Theta Upsilon, one of the first sororities to be established at the university. She was an honorary member of Lambda Chi, which was organized in 1926 for students of the arts. Humphrey is also listed as the advisor of the Art Club in the 1945 Chestnut Burr. 

During World War II, Humphrey developed courses for an occupational therapy program to be offered in conjunction with the College of Liberal Arts. In addition to courses in arts and crafts, the program included physiology, anatomy, psychology and sociology courses, as well as practice work in hospitals. “There will be an urgent need for such service in the rehabilitation centers as part of our defense program,” Humphrey says in a Kent Stater article dated Feb. 11, 1942. 

Humphrey expanded the curriculum in the art department to introduce concentrations in jewelry design, weaving, lithography, wood cutting and marionette and puppet design. 

In a Kent Stater article dated May 19, 1948, on the occasion of Humphrey’s 35th year of teaching at Kent State, she is described as “a quick and energetic woman, with a ready smile and a capacity for hard work.” Humphrey recalled planning and organizing the art department in 1913, when classroom work at the Kent Campus began. Offices were above the Kent National Bank, and classes were held in schools and churches in nearby cities until campus buildings were completed.

There were 22 faculty members, 291 students and a few well-organized departments. Besides her regular teaching activities, she was faced with administrative problems, the organization of curricula, and the problem of supplies. “The days were always too short…I have had a busy and exciting career here at Kent,” Humphrey said. “If I could begin all over again, there isn’t much I would change.”

“The days were always too short. . . . I have had a busy and exciting career here at Kent. If I could begin all over again, there isn’t much I would change.”

In the summer of 1949, she taught 13 students the art of hand weaving, an old craft that had been experiencing a revival “probably to get away briefly from this age of mass production in which we live,” Humphrey said in a Kent Stater article dated July 22, 1949. “Weaving is satisfying as well as stimulating because it is creative.”  

Weaving would become a passion for Humphrey, who founded the Kent Weaver’s Guild and designed many of her own patterns. She went on to win prizes for her work and continued to teach weaving on seven custom-made looms of different sizes in her Cuyahoga Falls home after retiring. She also lectured, designed and supervised the construction of fine hand looms.

An enthusiastic hobbyist, she collected pitchers and glassware, and at one time had 230 pieces. She became interested in colonial art during a trip through the Appalachian Mountains and collected samples from Sweden and other countries.

In 1951, Humphrey was granted emerita status only a few months after her retirement. 

She made her last public appearance at Kent State in 1963 at the 50th anniversary of the school's founding. The last of the original Kent State faculty, Humphrey died on June 22, 1968, in a Peninsula nursing home after a year’s illness. She was 88 years old.

Humphrey Hall was dedicated to Nina S. Humphrey in 1969. It was part of 11 two-story residence halls comprising the small-group housing complexes, which also included Apple, Altmann, Heer, Harbourt, Metcalf, McSweeney, Munzenmayer, Musselman, Stewart and Van Campen. These dorms were designed to assist first-year students with their transition to campus life. However, due to other campus renovations and expansions, several were deemed obsolete in 2008 and demolished, Humphrey Hall among them.

Humphrey Hall, 1971 Chestnut Burr

Sources
The Searchlight, 22 April 1926 
The Kent Stater, 1 June 1928 
The Kent Stater, 1 June 1928
The Kent Stater, 13 March 1930
The Kent Stater, 11 February 1942
The Kent Stater, 19 May 1948
The Kent Stater, 22 July 1949
The Kent Stater, 4 October 1951 
Kent State University Summer News, 27 June 1968

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