J. Carter Murphy, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Southern Methodist University, died October 26, 2012, at the age of 91. He was an active faculty member at SMU from 1961 until 1990. He served as director of graduate studies in the economics department, 1963-67, and was chairman of the department, 1967-71. He served on many SMU councils and committees and was President of the Faculty Senate, and ex officio member of the Board of Trustees, 1988-89. Born and raised in Fort Worth, Murphy was salutatorian of his 1939 Arlington Heights High School class. He attended TCU and then received a music degree in 1943 from the University of North Texas. After serving in WW II, he returned to North Texas for a bachelor of science in economics and then went to the University of Chicago for his doctoral degree in economics. In Chicago, he met and married his first wife, Dorothy Haldi, a sociology student. They were married 48 years until her death in 1997. As a naval officer during WW II, Murphy joined army assault units to direct naval gunfire supporting amphibious operations. He was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in the 1944 Normandy D-Day invasion, and then participated in the invasion of Luzon in the Philippines. Murphy taught economics at the Illinois Institute of Technology while completing his doctorate at the University of Chicago. He then taught at Washington University, St. Louis, becoming an associate professor. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Denmark, 1952-53, and a senior Fulbright Lecturer at the Johns Hopkins School in Bologna, Italy, 1961-62. After accepting a position at SMU in 1961, Murphy worked for the United Nations in 1964 as a technical expert in Egypt, and then a year in Thailand in 1966-67 for the Rockefeller Foundation as a Visiting Professor at Thammasat University, Bangkok. He and Richard Rubottom co-authored a book, Spain and the US: Since WW II under a Spanish-US Joint Committee. He lectured for the US Department of State in Europe and Asia and in 1971-72 joined the White House staff as senior staff economist at the President's Council of Economic Advisers, where he helped oversee the floating of the dollar in 1971. Following SMU's late-1980s football scandal, he served on the blue-ribbon Faculty-Student-Trustee-Alumni committee on the future of SMU athletics, where he argued for a more academic orientation rather than athletics. Murphy was given SMU's "M" award for outstanding service to the school in 1986 and was named "Outstanding Faculty Member" by the Student Senate in both 1986 and 1989. From 1981-1990 he taught at SMU-in-Oxford, a summer study program in the UK, serving as director in 1991. Murphy wrote three books and numerous chapters in books and articles in professional journals, mostly on international trade and financial policy. He was served as president of the Southwest Economics Association, the DFW Association of Business Economists, SMU Town and Gown, and SMU Retired Faculty Association. He was a member of many professional associations, including the Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations and the DFW Japan-America Society. He helped select scholars for Danforth and Harry Truman fellowships. He testified before Congress and went to many conferences at home and abroad, including annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank. Carter Murphy was preceded in death by his former wife, Dorothy, his parents, Joe and Elsie Murphy of Fort Worth, and his brother, Rev. Joe P. Murphy, Jr. He is survived by his wife, Teiko, two children, Douglas Murphy, of Addison, and Barbara Murphy, of Houston, three step-children, Ellen Kanazawa Miller, of Lafayette, Colorado, Tyle Kanazawa, of Del Rico, Florida, and Jody Kanazawa, of Alice Springs, Australia, and a step-granddaughter, Crystal Henderson. He was, at his death, a resident with his wife at Dallas' Highland Springs retirement community. There will be a memorial service at SMU's Perkins Chapel at 2 pm, Sunday, December 2, reception to follow. Burial will be private at Parkdale Cemetery, Arlington. Please direct any memorial gifts to the J. Carter Murphy Endowment Fund, SMU Office of Development, Box 750402, Dallas, TX 75275-0402.
Published in Dallas Morning News on November 9, 2012
Family Members
Parents
Joseph Preston Murphy Sr
1886–1966
Rachel Elsie Carter Murphy
1889–1979
Spouses
Teiko Oba Kanazawa
1929–2020 (m. 2000)
Dorothy Elise Haldi Murphy
1926–1997
Siblings
Rev Joe Preston Murphy Jr
1917–1980
