Friends, fellow leaders honor Corts during banquet

A former student stopped Samford University President Thomas E. Corts April 20 just before a banquet in his honor began and asked him to autograph a book of Corts’ quotes compiled for the occasion.
   
The president obliged and the Samford grad thanked him. “You’re kind to ask,” Corts replied.
   
It might have been his first autograph of the night, but it wasn’t his first handshake or hug — and it wouldn’t be his last. More than 600 Samford graduates, presidents of other colleges, government officials, Corts’ family members and other friends of the university gathered in the ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel Birmingham to honor Corts’ 23-year tenure at Samford in preparation for his retirement June 1.
   
During the banquet, Bill Stevens, chairman of Samford’s board of trustees, announced that after that date, the university will bestow the title of president emeritus on its beloved leader. “We know Dr. Corts will always hold a special place in Samford history,” Stevens said.
   
The Samford Auxiliary also honored Corts’ wife, Marla, for her contribution to Samford with the Marla Haas Corts Scholarship.
   
Albert Brewer, former Alabama governor and retired distinguished professor of law and government at Samford’s Cumberland School of Law, said all at Samford are grateful for the Cortses’ ministry. “[Corts] brought with him a deep appreciation for what Samford represented but also a deep vision for what Samford could be.”
   
Some 65 percent of alumni in Samford’s 165-year history have been impacted by Corts’ tenure. And he impacted those students not with holy words but through a strategy of embodiment, said William Hull, a distinguished university professor at Samford. “He lived out Samford’s mission with becoming modesty … not for power or for pleasure but for God and God alone.”
   
Eric Motley, a Samford alum and director of the Office of International Visitors for the U.S. Department of State, said he came to appreciate Corts first from afar while a student at Samford.
   
“I saw a man committed to a great cause, a man who refused to have a reserved parking space, who went out of his way to pick up a piece of paper on the quad and who showed just as much care to a janitor as a donor,” Motley said. “There is no better example of how I could aspire to live my life than Thomas Corts.”