COLUMBIA Mo.
Arvarh Strickland came to the University of Missouri nearly four decades ago to teach history.
On Friday, the school’s first black professor made some history of his own when a prominent campus building was renamed in his honor.
More than 100 former students, colleagues, friends and well-wishers turned out for the unveiling of Arvarh E. Strickland Hall, formerly known as the General Classroom Building. The building is in the heart of campus next to the Brady Commons student center.
One speaker after the next described a tough but caring teacher who held his students to the same exacting standards that helped Strickland leap from his rural Mississippi roots to a doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
He joined the University of Missouri-Columbia faculty in 1969 and quickly became a mentor, community fixture, civic leader and adviser to several chancellors.
Richard Kirkendall, the history department chairman who lured Strickland from Chicago State College, compared his former colleague to baseball’s Jackie Robinson, another trailblazer whose success was molded by his ability to shatter the limits others had put in his way.
