BIOGRAPHY OF MAY WERTHAN SHAYNE

September, 2009

May Werthan Shayne was a tireless advocate for children and families.

She grew up in Nashville, where she was born in 1934. In 1956, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Radcliffe College. Radcliffe was the sister school to Harvard, which was for men only at the time. May went on to receive a master’s degree from the New York School of Social Work at Columbia University in 1956, and then became a psychiatric caseworker in New York.

May continued to do social work when she moved back to Nashville in 1968 with her husband, Herbert, who was a businessman, and their children. Her efforts were numerous and varied. For many years, she was active in supporting what is now the Edgehill Community Center. She also helped establish and run a group home for troubled teenagers in Nashville. She was a consistent advocate for improved social services, with a particular interest in programs for the poor. She served as board chair of the Institute for Children’s Resources, a state-wide organization that achieved reforms in juvenile courts and children’s services.

During the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s, May worked, often as a key board member or chair person, with organizations including The Tennessee Conference on Social Welfare, the WPLN Educational Foundation, the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth, the JOBS Advisory Council of the Tennessee Department of Human Services, and United Way of Nashville and Middle Tennessee. She was a founding board member of the Metropolitan Nashville Public Education Foundation.

As she matured, she became increasingly interested in researching public policy and advocating reform. She joined the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies as a researcher in the late 1970s, eventually becoming the director of its Center for State and Local Policy. Under May’s leadership, the Center found a variety of ways to try to improve government, such as by providing training sessions for newly-elected Nashville Metropolitan Council members. In addition, May ran programs that trained new judges and state legislators. She co-wrote two books on social policy: Strengthening Families and Home and Community Care for Chronically Ill Children. She also wrote or co-wrote reports and periodical articles, including several on social services for families with chronically ill children.

May was a life-long learner. In 1993, at age fifty-nine, she began to study for a doctoral degree in public policy at Vanderbilt University. Her desire, as she told the family, was to advance her ability to study and shape public policy. She continued her work even after being diagnosed with cancer. She died in February, 1999, before completing the degree.

In conversation, May was both disarmingly honest and compassionate. Her wisdom and concern for others, combined with a seeming unconcern about her own ego, inspired those around her. Younger women viewed her as a role model. She was dearly loved as a daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, friend and colleague. One of her close friends, Gilbert S. Merritt, summed it up well: "In all of May's relationships, she lifted up the human heart. That's the way she spent her life. She was an uplifter of the human heart and mind."

May Werthan Shayne Elementary School is proud to bear her name and continue her legacy.