Description:Dressed in three piece dark gray suit, Professor McGill, with white hair, beard and mustache, sits with left arm resting on arm of chair and holding book in right hand.
History:Professor McGIll's portrait hangs in Kirkland Hall on the campus.
Notes:John T. McGill was associated with Vanderbilt University for seventy years, from 1876, the year he came as a student from Bentonville, AK, until 1946, the year of his death. He received the B.S. degree in 1879 and the Ph.D. degree in 1881. Having served as professor of organic chemistry and dean of the School of Pharmacy, he retired from teaching in 1920 but continued until 1942 as Secretary of Phi Beta Kappa, a post which he held from the Vanderbilt chapter’s founding in 1901. One of the founders of the Alumni Association, he served as secretary, president, member of the Board of Directors, as well as the executive committee, and continued to serve as historian until his death. Professor and Mrs. McGill lived on the Vanderbilt campus for many years in one of the residences built for faculty during the original campus construction. While that structure no longer stands, McGill Hall, a dormitory, stands just west of the site where that home stood.
