Buies Creek, N.C.- Founder’s Day speaker, Dr. Harriet Enzor, first laid eyes on Campbell University as an infant whose family lived in a trailer on campus. Enzor’s father Rev. Wesley Enzor had just returned from service in World War II and was attending Campbell as a pastoral student on the G.I. Bill.
“The trailer was just about where the new chapel is now,” said Enzor, associate professor of education (counseling) at Campbell. “And there were two chickens tied to an oak tree where the chapel bell tower is now located.”
The chickens were payment for a sermon Enzor’s father delivered at one of the area churches. Her mother often reminisces about the trailer, the chickens and the generosity of the Campbell community at that time. She speaks of Mrs. B.P. Marshbanks and how accommodating she was to students and their wives and the Taylor family of “Judge Taylor” street, who provided students in need with fresh vegetables from their garden. But the one story that best represents the spirit of Campbell to Enzor is the time her family was the beneficiary of an old-fashioned practice called “pounding,” she said.
“Pounding is when a collection of food, a pound of flour, a pound of sugar and so on, is given to a family in need,” Enzor said. “That Thanksgiving, I needed milk, my sister Linda needed shoes and mama needed Thanksgiving dinner.”
On Thanksgiving eve, a group of Campbell students showed up with food, milk and $5 for Linda’s shoes. The family never forgot their generosity, Enzor said.
In 1964, Enzor suffered a reaction to a polio vaccination that left her legs paralyzed. Her family had moved to Raleigh and she graduated from Enloe High School in 1968. Despite her paralysis, however, Enzor knew she wanted to come to Campbell.
Her first year was unsuccessful and Enzor was not readmitted to Campbell that next fall. Then her dad issued those infamous words, “Get a job,” and Enzor went to work in a bank. Although she hated her job, Enzor saved her money and was determined to apply to Campbell again the following year. She was accepted and her grades changed dramatically. Enzor made the dean’s list every year and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education. She worked as a school counselor in the Greensboro City School System on both secondary and elementary levels and as a counselor for the Association of Children with Learning Disabilities, eventually earning both a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in counseling and Development from the University of North Carolina in 1991. She returned to Campbell as a professor in the School of Education that same year.
“When I returned to Campbell in 1991, the first sounds I heard were the chimes and all of the memories came flooding back,” Enzor said. “I could just look at every building on campus and there was something I could relate to-the Baptist Student Union meetings at the Paul Green Theatre, the smells coming from the cafeteria, the hustle and bustle of the students walking across campus.”
Today there are more buildings, more academic programs and lots of new technology, Enzor said, but the warmth and compassion she experienced as a Campbell student and member of the community has never changed.
Enzor is a wheelchair Tennis Champion, winning both the U.S. Wheelchair Tennis Open and the North Carolina State Championship in 1997. She presently maintains a thriving practice as a psychotherapist in addition to her responsibilities as an associate professor of education (counseling).
Campbell University
Founded in 1887, Campbell University is a private, coeducational institution of the liberal arts, sciences and professions offering undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees. The university is comprised of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law, the Lundy-Fetterman School of Business, the School of Education, The College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and the Divinity School. The university was ranked in the top tier of “Best Universities in the South” offering masters’ degrees by U.S. News & World Report in its “America’s Best Colleges” 2010 edition and named one of the “100 Best College Buys” in the nation by Institutional Research & Evaluation, Inc.