The Beautiful Life of

Arthur S. Paul

It’s hard to believe that Arthur is no longer with us. He was an amazing husband and father, a wonderful son, brother, uncle, and cousin, and a once-in-a-lifetime friend. He will be missed. Nonetheless, we are comforted by the fact that we will see him again. We love you, Arthur!

View Arthur’s Funeral Program

Additional Tributes!

This family photo of the Paul siblings was taken in Toronto, Canada during the early 2000’s. (Starting from top left) Denis “Drayton” Paul, Sarah Pamela Paul, Arthur Sanderson Paul, Louisa Patterson, David Paul, Cecilia Ross (Starting from bottom left) Bowring Paul, Gracelyn Charles, Olive Charles, Oliver Paul.

Dr. Don Coleman wrote a beautiful tribute to Arthur. Only three portions of his tribute were included in the final funeral program. Below are the additional parts of the tribute to Arthur that describes his work as a graduate student and in business :

Graduate Student
In 1972 the School of Engineering (SOE) was awarded a grant to start the Urban Systems Engineering (USE) program. Arthur was the recipient of the first graduate fellowship awarded from that grant. Almost immediately the USE faculty, which was formed from several departments, due to the interdisciplinary design of USE, recognized that Arthur was a serious and very good student. In fact, when the USE faculty met to discuss assignment of the approximately 15 graduate research assistants to specific faculty members, there was a strong debate among the faculty for Arthur ‘s service. I recall that Arthur was assigned to Dr. L. Albert Scipio, who was a “University” Professor, an honorific title used at Howard similar to “Distinguished” Professor. More importantly, Professor Scipio was known as a fierce taskmaster and because of that I was privately was concerned for Arthur that the relationship would not be successful.
The first project in which Arthur was involved was the development of a workbook for first year USE students. The faculty members involved in this effort were Dr. Neville Parker, a new assistant professor in the civil engineering department, Professor Scipio, and myself. There were no textbooks at that time suitable for the USE curriculum we were designing. We were under pressure to develop this workbook as we were using it in real time with handouts to the students prior to each relevant class. I recall that Professor Scipio was developing, for a class he was teaching, this extensive set of case studies of various urban systems engineering projects. The person doing the work of seeking out the research, organizing, and initially reviewing the material for Professor Scipio was Arthur Paul. Scipio was a scholar of the highest rank and a very rigorous task master, as well as, hard to please. But we never heard anything but praise from Scipio regarding the job Arthur did as his research assistant on that project. Arthur not only was smart but also had the kind of personality to work with any kind of person, even those who could be difficult.
Finally, when I informed Dr. Percy Pierre, former dean of the Howard University School of Engineering, of the passing of Arthur Paul, he immediately went into a story that indicates what a special student Arthur was. Briefly in the early 70’s, Dr. Pierre was teaching this new statistics course for the urban systems program and one assignment had to do with the estimation of characteristics of a population based on the use of some special sampling techniques. The assignment given to Arthur’s class required a meticulous sampling procedure and a rather time consuming data collection process. Dr. Pierre recalled that Arthur’s work was so meticulous that he was able to predict almost perfectly the parameters of the wider population based on the samples and he was the only student to do so. Arthur Paul was special.
After Arthur completed his studies for a master of science in urban systems engineering, he along with George York, another member of the first USE class, were given fellowships to the newly established PhD program in systems engineering at the University of Virginia. They were the first of a number of Howard USE graduates to be part of that PhD program. As a matter of fact, George York was reported to be the first student to be awarded a doctorate from that new UVA systems engineering program. Arthur would subsequently complete his studies and also receive his doctorate from the University of Virginia.

Business
Another side of Arthur was his enthusiasm for entrepreneurship. His energy and eagerness for his own business lead to another dimension of our relationship. In the late 70’s Arthur approached me with the idea of starting a management-consulting firm. I was interested and very comfortable with working with Arthur based upon several years of working with him first as an undergraduate student, graduate student, and as a faculty member. So Arthur and I co-founded a consulting firm that we called Analysis Group, Incorporated (AGI). AGI started out in Georgetown but after a year or so we decided to purchase property at 1102 Irving Street in northwest Washington which would serve as the headquarters for AGI for several years. As my portfolio expanded at the University, I was restricted in the time I had available to devote to AGI and eventually Arthur took on the helm as the major Principal of AGI. We had worked successfully together to found and make AGI a viable firm.

News about Arthur

The Washington Post

  • Journal of Blacks in Higher Education – https://www.jbhe.com/2020/07/in-memoriam-arthur-sanderson-paul-1950-2020/
  • Newstoter – https://newstoter.com/in-memoriam-arthur-sanderson-paul-1950-2020
  • Pintrest UK – https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/476889048047745133/
Resolution from Greater Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church, Starksville, Mississippi.

“When I reflect on my father’s last day with us, this scene always comes to mind. While none of us could truly know what he felt, I did know that he was a fighter. He was truly one of the bravest men I ever knew. I know that he fought to live, but I also know… he was prepared to die. He was not afraid of death, because he lived a full, beautiful, and righteous life. He was courageous until the very end.“

– Candace Paul

Below is a playlist of Arthur’s favorite songs! Take a listen and think of him.

Until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.