Professor of Education John Hemphill loves the English language. After graduating from UNCG with a degree in English in 1972, he began teaching in the Laurens County, S.C., public schools.

"As an English major, that's what I thought I wanted to teach. After a few weeks as a middle school teacher, it became apparent that most of my students didn't share my love of English - many of them couldn't even read!" Hemphill said.

Realizing he was needed elsewhere, he refocused his efforts on teaching reading. He earned the M.Ed. in reading education at Clemson University and the Ph.D. in reading/language arts education at Florida State University. After teaching English, reading and language arts for several years, Hemphill left the public schools for a career as a professor of education, training future teachers to teach.

Hemphill joined Greensboro College in 1993. A longtime advocate for teacher rights and benefits in public education (he served as president of the Laurens County Education Association and was a national delegate to the 1976 National Education Association [NEA] conference), he passes the torch of activism on to his students.

"I teach students about the need to be involved in the profession through being an active member of the NEA," said Hemphill, who advises the College's chapter of Student North Carolina Association of Educators.

Hemphill's primary goal now at Greensboro College is to study the use of educational technology in preparing students to teach.

"We must come to terms with how to use technology for teaching and learning, and understand better what the opportunities are," Hemphill said. "Computers are playing a big role in changing the face of education. The teaching world is going to be remade."

To help students envision how computer technology will change the teaching profession over the next 20-30 years, Hemphill has them explore Web sites with educational purposes.

"Ten years ago, you had a certain piece of information in your personal collection or library or you didn't. Now you can go online and get lesson plans for Antetum in two minutes!"

When he's not teaching his students about educational technology, Hemphill is putting it to good use himself. Using Ethics-Across-the-Curriculum summer research grants, he created a database to organize his 1,500-plus collection of proverbs about the ethics of teaching; the collection spans epochs and cultures, with profundities from Confucius and Socrates stored alongside Native American sayings and Old Testament passages.

"For an individual who has severe disabilities to the point that he cannot take care of himself and requires a lot of personal assistance, there is nowhere to go except home when you age out of public school. We created this organization to provide a place for those adults so they wouldn't have to go home and watch T.V. for the rest of their lives," said Hemphill, who is president of the 2-year-old organization.

"I wonder what it would have been like if the ancients had had databases to organize their spiritual teachings," Hemphill mused.

To counter his love of modern technology, Hemphill spends as much time outdoors as possible. He has a 19-foot sailboat that he captains on North Carolina's bigger lakes, and he backpacks, hikes, fishes, canoes and camps on weekends with his family.

Much of Hemphill's time also is dedicated to After Gateway Inc., a nonprofit group that he and his wife, Susan, formed with other parents of mentally and physically challenged children. Hemphill has plans to enroll his son Max in the future; Max suffered brain damage from a near-fatal case of viral encephalitis at age 3 and now, at 19, still behaves like a young child.

"For an individual who has severe disabilities to the point that he cannot take care of himself and requires a lot of personal assistance, there is nowhere to go except home when you age out of public school. We created this organization to provide a place for those adults so they wouldn't have to go home and watch T.V. for the rest of their lives," said Hemphill, who is president of the 2-year-old organization.