Morris, Delyte W., 1906-1982

Delyte Morris was inaugurated on 1949 May 5, in conjunction with Southern's Diamond Jubilee Celebration. In his 22 years at SIU, Morris built upon the rich, early history of the University and transformed it from a teacher's college, to the second-ranking public comprehensive research university in Illinois. Among his many accomplishments, Morris instituted Ph.D. programs and created family housing. He lobbied for and got the TV station, the FM radio station, the university press, the news service, and outdoor education. He also promoted ecology, just as he provided facilities for the handicapped years before society demanded them. He brought to the school such luminaries as R. Buckminster Fuller, Katherine Dunham and Marjorie Lawrence. He also developed Southern Illinois University's law, medical, and dental schools, as well as Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He retired from the university in 1980.

Delyte Wesley Morris was born on April 11, 1907 in Xenia, Illinois. He received his B.A. from Park College in Missouri in 1928, his M.A. from the University of Maine in 1934, and his Ph. D. from the State University of Iowa in 1936. He began his long career as an educator by teaching in the high school at Sulphur, Oklahoma from 1928 to 1930. He was instructor in public speaking and director of forensic activities at the University of Maine from 1930 to 1936. From 1936 to 1938 he was chairman of the speech department and director of the special education clinics at the Indiana State Teachers' College from 1938 to 1946. Morris was professor of speech and director of the speech and hearing clinic at Ohio State University from 1946 until 1948 when he became president of Southern Illinois University, a position he held until he resigned in 1970. In 1971 he became executive director for the National Council on Educating the Disadvantaged, and in 1972 a member of the Neurological Diseases and Stroke Council of the National Institute of Health. Morris married Dorothy Arnold Mayo and had two sons, Peter Craig and Michael Alen. Dr. Morris died April 10, 1982.