www.union.edu/Presidents/
Sixteenth president of Union College, August 1, 1979–August 31, 1990
Born in Rhondda, South Wales, the son of Jenkin Morris, a coal miner, and Hannah Williams Morris, John Morris served with the Royal Air Force, 1943–47, before entering the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (BA 1951). He spent an additional year there doing honors work in philosophy, then obtained a second bachelor’s and a master’s degree in 1953 from Cambridge University.
Ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1954, he married Enid Elry Walters in that year and emigrated to the United States. He served as a minister in Vernon and Vernon Center, New York (1954–57) while pursuing graduate work in theology at Colgate University (MA 1957). In 1960, before receiving his PhD from Columbia (1961), he was appointed a full-time member of the Colgate faculty—he had done some part-time teaching there earlier—and rose to Professor of Philosophy and Religion by 1970 and Colgate Professor of the Humanities in 1971. During his time at Colgate, Morris entered academic administration, initially as Assistant Dean of Faculty (1965–67), chairing the committee that recommended co-education at Colgate, later as Director of the Division of Humanities (1970–72) and of the Division of University Studies (1972–73), then as Provost and Dean of Faculty (1973–79). He served as acting president in 1977.
Union announced Dr. Morris’s selection as its sixteenth president on March 15, 1979, the appointment to take effect on August 1, 1979. Formally inaugurated on October 13, 1979, during two days of festivities, Morris spoke in his inaugural address of Union’s "peculiar destiny as a liberal arts college with engineering within its bounds," urging that this peculiarity be exploited through cross-disciplinary interchanges among students and faculty.
The administrative style which came to characterize the Morris administration was understated competence combined with an iron hand behind the scenes. In the area of curriculum and educational policy, for example, the Liberal Learning program was examined, found wanting in core requirements, and a new general education curriculum was phased in beginning in the fall of 1989.
Perhaps the single most important educational policy commitment President Morris made was the decision in the spring of 1987 to discontinue requiring Scholastic Aptitude Test scores of applicants for admission. Encouraged by his academic deans, the Admissions Committee, and the Office of Admissions, who cited the alleged bias in the tests themselves and their failure to predict success in college, Morris agreed to a policy change that drew national attention to Union. At the time, the president said that claims that the SATs discriminated against women were crucial to his decision.
College presidents take special pride in their "bricks and mortar" accomplishments, perhaps because of the visibility and relative permanence of the results achieved. President Morris was no exception, although he started slowly in this area. In fact, one of his first moves was an attempt to sell college property, namely, the Girling Center on Aqueduct Road; it was put on the market in 1982, removed in 1985, and finally sold in January 1990. In April 1981 the renovated admissions and financial aid office in Old Gym was renamed Stanley Becker Hall after its benefactor. The new lighted, artificial turf Athletic Field, eventually named Bailey Field, was first used in the fall of 1981. As avid swimmers, both the President and Mrs. Morris had to be pleased by the renovation of Alumni Gymnasium completed in January 1987, including the addition to it of a state-of-the-art swimming and diving pool, as well as squash and handball courts.
But the building project Morris judged most important was the renovation of and addition to Carnegie Hall, to be renamed the College Center (and, in 1995, the Reamer Campus Center). President Morris saw this building as a symbol for the integrity of the College community, always insisting that it not be called "the student center," but "the college center." With its combination of student and administrative offices, the upperclass dining hall, and the Dutchman’s Hollow Pub, as well as the BOOKSTORE and, importantly, the College mail boxes and post office, the College Center has indeed functioned to bring the community together on a daily basis.
President Morris’s bricks and mortar legacy is a large number of renovations and additions; the only completely new building erected during his administration was the Engineering Laboratory (1985), made necessary when the addition to the College Center required the demolition of the old engineering shops.
One of the first and most important obligations incurred by Dr. Morris’s acceptance of the call to Union in 1979 was responsibility for a fund-raising campaign to begin in 1980. Called the "Campaign for Union," its goal was to raise thirty million dollars by 1985—a doubling of the existing endowment. When this goal had been achieved by the fall of 1983, the target was increased to fifty million dollars, which was reached by the campaign’s conclusion in June 1985. At the end of President Morris’s tenure, the total endowment stood at ninety million dollars. Obviously, the president, and Mrs. Morris who usually traveled with him and was a favorite of Union graduates, spent a large part of their time extracting good will and dollars from alumni and friends of the College. Not an easy, extemporaneous speaker, President Morris preferred to use prepared texts for alumni events and formal convocations. His fall 1987 opening convocation address, in support of the importance of core courses in western civilization as a central component of liberal education, was excerpted in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
By the late 1980s many in the college community believed that Union was losing its momentum, that there were no new initiatives underway, and that perhaps President Morris had exhausted his usefulness. Just as the faculty had wanted a return to peace and calm when Morris arrived in 1979, in 1989 they wanted a greater sense that the College was actively seeking some planned objectives. Moreover, the College bicentennial in 1995, presumed to include a major capital campaign, would require a great deal of energy and effort from the entire community, especially from the president. Although nearing traditional retirement age, Morris himself showed little inclination to retire, so it came as something of a surprise when he announced his resignation at the opening faculty meeting on September 5, 1989, to be effective August 31, 1990. In fact, the president had negotiated a "golden parachute" with the Board of Trustees; as President Emeritus he would be on a year’s sabbatical during 1990/91, then spend the succeeding two academic years teaching occasional courses and supervising terms abroad in Japan and China. The Trustees awarded President Morris Union’s highest honor, the Founders Medal, at his last commencement, June 17, 1990.
Condensed from Wayne Somers, compiler and editor, Encyclopedia of Union College History (Schenectady: Union College Press, 2003), page 493.
Image courtesy of Union College, Schaffer Library Special Collections and Archives, Photograph Collection