NCSU Libraries Focus Online

Volume 28 number 1 - Fall 2007

A Good Environment for Learning

By Catherine Pellegrino, NCSU Libraries Fellow 2004-2006

Tom Quay, a young man living in Depression-era Mount Holly, New Jersey, began to pursue two passions that would shape and drive his future career: a love of knowledge and learning, and a fascination with wildlife, especially birds. Quay would go on to become a beloved and profoundly influential professor of zoology at NC State, but first, he needed to find a way to continue his education at the collegiate level.

Quay did this by enrolling at the University of Arkansas, where tuition was an affordable $15 per term and where he could study ornithology. After graduating in 1938, he accepted an offer to come to Raleigh and work with Zeno P. Metcalf to establish a wildlife program and teach ornithology. Quay finished his master's degree in 1940 and began work on his Ph.D. when he was drafted into the United States Navy in 1942. When he returned to his studies in 1946, on the GI Bill, he had to start his research over again. However, the effort proved to be worthwhile, as Quay earned one of the first three Ph.D. degrees granted by NC State in 1948.

From there, Quay launched a thirty-two-year teaching career, notable for its emphasis on experiential education. At every opportunity, Quay would take his students out into the field, limiting enrollment in his lab sections to the number of students who could fit into a van for transportation. The Thomas L. Quay Wildlife and Natural Resources Undergraduate Experiential Learning Award was established by Quay's colleagues to honor him and provide continuing support for experiential learning at NC State.

In addition to his own groundbreaking research, which included a catalog of the plant and animal life of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Quay influenced the studies of hundreds of NC State students. Many of these students went on to become distinguished scholars, researchers, and leaders in the fields of conservation and wildlife science.

In 1980 Quay retired from NC State to care for his wife Violet until her death in 1983. An NCSU Libraries endowment was created in her memory. The Violet Quay Memorial Book Collection emphasizes the social sciences, humanities, and fine arts, especially grief and loss education and counseling; theology and pastoral care; arts, crafts, and antiques; English language and literature; and other books of promise in human love and understanding.

In the mid-1980s Quay embarked on his second career, which he described as that of "a full-time volunteer and unpaid environmental activist." In this role, he works with researchers, state officials, and conservation groups to spread knowledge about wildlife and their habitats and to conserve the state's wild and natural spaces.

Quay's legacy is threefold: it includes his students, who have taken his passions for learning and wildlife far and wide; his research, which fundamentally changed and shaped the understanding of wildlife science; and his endowment, which allows the Libraries to further its mission of being the gateway to knowledge for the NC State University community.