By Rebecca Downing
Huntington “Hunt” Terrell built a strong argument for the importance of addressing issues of social justice and human values, ethics, and morality in the liberal arts curriculum — while mentoring generations of students.
1946-1998
Huntington Terrell, Class of 1946 and professor of philosophy emeritus, upon his retirement in 1998
If the mark of a genuinely serious philosopher is an unswerving and unembarrassed search for the good and the true, then Huntington Terrell … was an authentic figure in a short line of such dedicated searchers.”
Colgate Scene, March 2002
A native of West Hartford, Conn., Terrell first came to Colgate — also his father’s, brother’s, and uncle’s alma mater — as an undergraduate. Although he had entered with the Class of 1946, he graduated within two years, during the university’s wartime accelerated program, in 1944.2 He had majored in philosophy and graduated magna cum laude with honors.3
Brought up in a religious family — his father, William S. (Class of 1917, D.Div., 1942), was head of the Connecticut Baptist Convention and his mother, Marjorie, served as president of the United Church Women4 — Terrell nevertheless developed a “secular passion for justice.”5
After Colgate, he served for two years in the Navy, yet his personal convictions soon led him to a pacifist stance, a dichotomy he continued to wrestle with both personally and publicly during his career.6
Terrell then went on to Harvard for his master’s and doctoral degrees. The subject of his dissertation — the proper standards for “The Concept of a Moral Judgment” — would become the long-standing commitment of both his personal and professional lives.7
He returned to teach at Colgate in 1951. He taught a variety of courses, including Greek Philosophy and Aesthetics, but he used sabbatical leaves at Harvard and Princeton, and in India, to explore contemporary moral theory and practical ethics and the developing discipline of peace studies.8
Throughout his time at Colgate, Terrell built a strong argument for the importance of addressing issues of social justice and human values, ethics, and morality in the liberal arts curriculum.
In 1986, in the Washington Post’s coverage of the Great Peace March during which 1,000 citizens walked across the country, author Colman McCarthy observed, “The peace movement is now an educated group. In the 1960s, people knew there was something wrong but didn't always have the background to speak intelligently. Students are now coming out who have the skills and analysis. Colgate University is among the 200 peace-movement schools.”14
As Terrell told the reporter, students at Colgate that year had 18 courses to choose from in the peace studies concentration. “A lot of people,” he said, “think the peace-studies students are troublemakers. In fact, they understand the complexities of issues very clearly. We’ve been able to change Colgate for the better because these students have heads and hearts, ideas as well as emotions. They'll be leaders.”15
A true leader himself, among the students as well as the faculty, Terrell received the Alumni Corporation Distinguished Teaching Award in 1994 and the Sidney J. and Florence Felten French Teaching Award. He died on December 29, 2001.
