FAMU legend turns 101 as family creates endowment | Opinion

Elizabeth Navarro Carr, a former Florida A&M University librarian, will turn 101 on Nov. 1, according to an opinion piece written by her granddaughter, Amy Elizabeth Alan Wheeler, a third-generation FAMU graduate and Business Redevelopment Officer for the city of Haines City, Florida. Carr was born in Key West to a family that immigrated from Cuba. She arrived at Florida A&M College, where she met her husband, Ellis Carr, in 1941. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, earned an engineering degree at FAMU, and later became one of the first African American engineers to pass the electrical licensing examination. He died in 1986.

Carr worked as a librarian in Coleman Library and taught library science courses in Tucker Hall during the 1950s and 1960s. At the request of Dean Sybil Mobley, she established the School of Business and Industry Library, where she worked until retirement. Charles Rutland, who studied at the school from 1978 to 1982 and later served as an assistant dean, recalled that she taught him to use the Business Periodicals Index for a corporate finance paper.

The family will sign an endowment in Carr's honor on Nov. 14 at a private ceremony with FAMU President Marva Johnson and the FAMU Foundation. Wheeler and her brother, Dr. Rodney Kenneth Alan, an orthopedic surgeon in Florence, South Carolina, are the signatories. The endowment amount is private but exceeds the university's $25,000 minimum. Four of Carr's children graduated from FAMU, and the family describes the gift as an expression of gratitude for the education and opportunity the university provided.