May 19, 1998
SIU plans celebration
of the Morris years CARBONDALE, Ill. —The late Delyte W. Morris, who transformed a small teacher's college into the multi-campus Southern Illinois University, has been called a "practical visionary," an "architect of growth" and a "great man." He was all that—"and strikingly handsome to boot," says his widow, Dorothy M. Morris, who now lives in Chapel Hill, N.C. SIU will honor its eighth president during the coming academic year with a series of events commemorating the 50th anniversary of his first year here. The schedule includes the Oct. 16 dedication of the Dorothy Morris Gardens, an expansion of the backyard garden Mrs. Morris tended so lovingly 50 years before. Mrs. Morris first met her husband-to-be in the fall of 1930 at the University of Maine's library. He was a new graduate student studying speech, she was in charge of the circulation desk. "He was tall, muscular, and he had great presence," Mrs. Morris remembers. "I showed him where the speech books were and from there we developed a friendship." The friendship speedily blossomed; they married four months later. Over the next several years, Morris finished his master's degree, earned a doctorate, then taught in Kansas City and Terre Haute, Ind., before moving to Columbus, Ohio, to direct The Ohio University's speech and hearing clinic. He was at Ohio, then a major university with associated professional schools, when the SIU job came open. "He was from Southern Illinois—a little town called Xenia, near Flora—and it was his wish to come back and help the area," Mrs. Morris says. "It was a depressed area, but he had great vision, and he could see the potential." When the Morrises arrived in Carbondale in 1948 with their grade school-aged sons, Peter and Michael, the fledgling university occupied roughly one city block, employed 250 faculty members and had just over 3,000 students enrolled. "It was an interesting adjustment," Mrs. Morris says. They bunked down in the now-defunct Roberts Hotel while workmen refurbished an old house at 1006 S. Thompson (the present site of the University Museum in Faner Hall) as the presidential residence. "It wasn't big, but it was adequate," Mrs. Morris recalls. "It had a two-story living room with balconies on one end. The boys had a suite on one side, we had a suite on the other and there was a guestroom—any time the university had guests, they stayed at our home. We entertained many people of color because at that time there was nowhere in Carbondale where they could eat or stay." That personal touch was a hallmark of the Morris years, where faculty and students became something of an extended family. "It was an intimate campus in those days," Mrs. Morris says. "We had dinners and faculty receptions and a watermelon feed in the fall for the new students. I used to visit all the new faculty after they arrived—of course, it was easy back then because they came so slowly." And the personal touch was part of how Morris made his dreams for his new college a reality. "He had a list of 10 things he was going to accomplish, and he carried it around on a piece of scrap paper in his wallet," Mrs. Morris says. "But to accomplish them, he had to sell his ideas, which he did by hard work—going out and speaking every night, letting people see him and see who he was. I went with him as much as possible— I think he went to every town in Southern Illinois. I think people generally wanted to improve the area, so they were with him, and it helped that many of them knew his family. "After he retired and was in the hospital, a man came up to me and said, 'Your husband came to Rotary Club and told us all the things that he was going to do, and he accomplished them all.'" Mrs. Morris, who has four small gardens at her Chapel Hill home, plans to attend the garden dedication at SIU. "I think it will be very nice," she said, "and I was delighted that they [the University] will be honoring my husband. He contributed so much to the area and I am so proud of what he accomplished."
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