James T. Laney

James T. Laney (born 1927) was dean at the Candler School of Theology, president of Emory University and United States Ambassador to South Korea.

Laney was born in the American south and grew up in Arkansas and Memphis. He earned his B.A. degree in economics at Yale though his studies were interrupted by service in the United States Army in the late 1940s in Korea, working in military intelligence. "He would say later in life that the experience in Korea so changed his thinking about the world, that by the time he returned to Yale to finish his degree, in 1950, he had determined to enter the ministry," his Emory biography said. He attended Yale Divinity School, became a Methodist minister, and served as chaplain at Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall) while completing his seminary degree.

"For five years following his seminary graduation, Laney served as a church minister in Cincinnati, Ohio. But in 1959, drawn by what he had seen in Korea, Laney returned [there] ... to serve as a Methodist missionary teaching at Yonsei University in Seoul. In 1964, seeing higher education as another facet of his vocation, he entered Yale Graduate School, where he completed his Ph.D. degree in Christian ethics in just two years. In 1969, only three years after becoming an assistant professor at Vanderbilt Divinity School, Laney was called by Emory to be dean of the Candler School of Theology."

Laney was dean at the Emory's Candler School from 1969 to 1977.

He served as the 17th president of Emory from 1977 to 1993.

Laney was appointed Ambassador to South Korea by President Bill Clinton on October 15, 1993; presented credentials November 2, 1993. He was involved in defusing the 1994 nuclear crisis during his tenure. He left his post on February 5, 1996.

Laney served on Harvard Board of Overseers committee for the Divinity School and has served on the Executive Committee of the Yale University Council. He is a trustee of the Henry Luce Foundation in New York; co-chair, with Andrew Young, of Faith and the City in Atlanta; and board member of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. He is a past director of The Coca-Cola Company and SunTrust Georgia. From 1997-2003 he co-chaired the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Korea.

...
Wikipedia