Robert Hemenway

As each person came forward to speak to those gathered at the Dole Institute of Politics on Sunday afternoon for the memorial service of Robert “Bob” Hemenway, an image began to emerge beyond that seen in the many photos of the former Kansas University chancellor in broad-brimmed straw hats.

Hemenway, who died July 31, was KU’s 16th chancellor, serving from 1995 to 2009. The list of his accomplishments while chancellor is long, including his priority to gaining National Cancer Institute Designation for KU Medical Center, supporting faculty research and increasing women and minority faculty members. But for all the time Hemenway’s commitment to KU must have demanded, it doesn’t seem that he ever stopped being what he was at his core: a teacher.

Hemenway was a “teaching chancellor,” Chancellor Emeritus Del Shankel told the audience of more than 200 attendees. Shankel recalled how Hemenway, a former English professor, continued to teach 7:30 a.m. English and American Studies courses at KU throughout his tenure as chancellor.

Shankel noted Hemenway’s research on Harlem Renaissance author Zora Neale Hurston and his subsequent book, “Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography,” which many credit with helping spark a national resurgence in Hurston studies.

Hemenway’s role as a teacher extended beyond the professional sphere of his life. His son Arna Hemenway told of the time when as a child he took a screwdriver down to the basement and removed all the outlet covers. In response, Arna recalled, his father taught him about electricity — how it worked and why it was dangerous.

“He didn’t yell at me,” Arna said. “Instead he sat with me and told me a story.”

Hemenway’s son Zach Hemenway recounted similar experiences with his father. Zach told of the time when as a student at KU, he accidentally left a copy of a 20-page term paper he was writing for a literature course in the printer of his father’s office. His father called him, Zach recalled, not just to say that he had read it, but to offer a full set of detailed notes of how his son could improve it, along with suggestions of other sources he might look into.

“I just imagine him noticing something in the printer when he got home in the evening and taking the time to read 20 pages before he goes to bed,” Zach said.

Such tireless curiosity and attention to detail typified Hemenway’s legacy at KU, which included notable increases in overall enrollment and university fundraising, as well as capital improvements at the Lawrence and Edwards campuses and KU Med.

Hemenway’s sons also reflected on the stories he told them, which weren’t your average children’s fairy tales. Zach noted specifically the time his father told him about Henry “Box” Brown, the real-life story of a slave who escaped by enclosing himself in a wooden crate and mailing himself to freedom.

“He must have been a good teacher, because I never forgot that,” Zach added.

Arna, meanwhile, remembered his father sharing an exciting adventure story — about a man on an ocean voyage, battling monsters — with a group of Cub Scouts. Arna remembered it well enough, in fact, that when he took a literature class years later, he recognized his father’s story as none other than Homer’s Odyssey.

But despite all the lessons growing up, Arna explained, it was the example his father set for him — in his work but also as a father and a husband — that was the most important.

“Perhaps the greatest thing I ever learned from my dad is how to make a life,” Arna told the crowd.

Hemenway is survived by his wife of 34 years, Leah, eight children and 12 grandchildren.