"Vivian Chambers Murray"{June 4,1903-February 23,1984} male.

Was born to Will and Elise Chambers in Salishbury,North Carolina,Salibury North Carolina.He was still a baby when his father,died leaving his mother as the sole provider of her three children.By the time Vivian was eight,he was lighting coal furnace fires for neighborning families to add his own earnings to his mother's income as a seamstress.Later she remarried,to the Rev.W.H.Howard,and the family moved to a house near the Livingstone College campus.Already a good student and interested in science,Vivian discovered that living near the college gave him a chance to get to know professors and students,so he never lacked for academic role models. As an undergraduate,he attended Shaw University in Raleigh,North Carolina,where he played on the football them and earned his B.S. in 1928.With his primary interests in medicine at the time,he earned a second degree,a B.A.,from Columbia University in New York in 1931.By then,the United States had entered a period of extreme economic depression,and jobs were hard to find.In an effort to stimulate the economy,the federal government created several programs  that provided jobs,among them the Works Progress Administration (WPA).Vivian position as a researcher at the American Museum of National History.As he prepared insects specimens and studied them for his research,he developed a new interest in entomology.Eager to pursue advanced study in the field,he was accepted at Cornell University,he ran into prejudice against blacks when he tried to enroll for work in entomology.Vivian had tremendous persseverance,and he obtained his master's degree in entommology in 1935.After teaching science for a couple of years at Lincoln Normal School (now Alabama State University),he joined the biology faculty of Alabama A&M University in Huntsville in 1937 the beginning of a long and productive realtionship.He completed his P.h.D. at Cornell in 1942 (becoming the only faculty member at Alabama A&M who had doctorate,besides the president).His field was economic entomology,which includes the costs involved with controling insects pests.He became full professor of biology at Alabama A&M  in 1945,and in 1970 he became first dean of the newly established School of Arts and Sciences.Farmers needed to control insects pests,and DDT and other sprays could do the job.Vivian showed in his dissertation,the residue from pestcides could run off into neighboring bodies of water and nearby waters,had potential for damaging other important parts of the region's ecology.The work done by Vivian served to lay the groundwork for a greater consciousness of the negative potential of human actions that othervise might seem to have only positive effects,from the human viewpoint.Vivian retired in 1973but continued his involvement with the university.He died in Huntsville Alabama.Alabama A&M has commemorated his work and life by naming the Chambers Science Building in his honor.