‘Lifelong learner’ at 86 receives ninth college degree at Emory graduation

When Hurl Taylor marched to receive a master’s degree in business at Emory’s graduation on May 12, it was a familiar walk. Taylor at age 86 was accepting his ninth post-secondary school degree—his fourth from Emory. In 2016, when he received a theology degree from Emory, he was at 77 the oldest member of his class.

Describing himself as “a lifelong learner,” Taylor said he comes from a family that loves reading and learning. His original career plan was to be a high school science teacher. He enrolled at Hampton Institute, now Hampton University, in his native Virginia and prepared for his chosen profession.

“Hampton had an ROTC program that I joined. It paid a daily stipend—it was 90 cents, but 90 cents a day back then was really helpful, particularly since my family had little to help me with. The war in Vietnam was starting to heat up and I went into the Army,” Taylor recalled.

The military, he said, provided more opportunities for education. “I spent 20 years in the U.S. Army and for the first 10, I only did military training classes. I realized that the civilian world required more than just my military training in order to be competitive after I retired from the Army,” he said.

“I was stationed at Ft. Benning in Columbus, Georgia, and there was a satellite campus of Georgia State there. We were allowed to take classes there if there were openings,” Taylor continued.

Saying that he has always followed the motto “learn to serve and serve to learn,” Taylor noted that being of service to others was the motivation behind each of his degrees. The newest degree, a master’s in business for veterans, he said, was pursued so that he could help his fellow veterans. Earlier, he had gotten a law degree primarily to assist those in his community who needed legal help. During his years of practicing law, he often provided pro bono—no charge—work to those who could not afford legal fees.

Taylor explained his decision to get a theology degree this way: “I was participating in a prison ministry at my church and found that inmates that I worked with sometimes had biblical questions that I couldn’t answer. I decided to go back to school and learn what I needed to know to answer their questions.” That led to his master’s in religion and public life from the Candler School of Theology at Emory. His Ph.D. in education from Georgia State, he said, was to sharpen his teaching skills.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing, Taylor recalled. “When I first entered Georgia State, I took a class from a professor who had a reputation for never giving a grade higher than a ‘B’ to a Black student. I was determined to change that. I turned in such high-quality work that he couldn’t give me a ‘B’ without admitting that he was prejudiced. Many of the White students supported me. They told the professor, ‘If Taylor doesn’t deserve an A, no one deserves an A.’”

Taylor has advice for others who seek to be learners: “I would encourage students to participate in academics at their own comfort level and not get distracted by factors of age or prior educational attainment. As the oldest student in many of my classes, I felt refreshed to engage with younger inquisitive peers.”

He also advises people to always keep a sense of humor. “If you can laugh when things are tough, you can get through somehow. When I was growing up and we didn’t have much, we often joked about having to eat catsup sandwiches, mustard sandwiches—even air sandwiches—but we would laugh about it and keep going.”

Despite a busy life during which he founded and operated a business, served in the Army’s elite Green Berets, practiced law, and served as a college professor, Taylor was able to fulfill his original career goal when he taught science for a year at Stone Mountain High School.