The University That Shouldn't Have Happened, but Did!: Southern Illinois University During the Morris Years 1948-1970 - Hardcover

Harper, Robert A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0966436407 ISBN 13: 9780966436402

Publisher: Devil's Kitchen Pr, 1998

Synopsis

Tells the story of the remarkable transformation of Southern Illinois University between 1948 and 1970 under its leader President Delyte W. Morris-a university created according to his unique image and his personal crusade. At the same time it is a tragedy that involves too much success, a very different world of a different time-even a spent man. In 1970 these combine to destroy the man and severely damage the university he created. The book is based Interviews with over 100 persons from the time and additional sources.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Robert A. Harper was a member and chair of the geography department at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale during most of this period, before moving on to chair the geography department at the University of Maryland, College Park. He has written, co-written, and edited numerous geography textbooks. He is past-president of the National Council for Geographic Education and received the University of Chicago Alumni Award for Professional Achievement. Retired, he lives in Carbondale.

From the Inside Flap:

On September 10, 1948, a new president stepped into his office at Southern Illinois University for the first time. It was hardly a newsworthy event. He had been passed over three years before as a candidate for president and had been hired largely because the previous president had suddenly resigned a month before Fall term without preparing the new biennial budget.

Southern Illinois, the region the university served, was the "poor relation" of the rest of the state....Southern Illinois was an area of poor farming, coal mining, and hill lands with little value other than their scenery. Most of the people in Illinois had never been to the region.

Yet, 22 years later when that president left office he (had) created a university according to his own vision-one unlike any other. His university was open to all-the physically handicapped, minorities, the poor, even those who had been poor achievers in high school. In a time before community colleges his university taught programs for mechanics, dental technicians, and morticians. His university provided developmental services to communities, provided clinical services, helped libraries and schools, developed radio and TV stations. The Edwardsville campus was another example of SIU serving a depressed area. Morris also took the university into projects assisting poor countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

The story ends in tragedy for both the man and the university. In the midst of statewide criticism of bad decisions, he was abandoned by those around him. The man who had "blown his opponents out of the water" in earlier days was unable to defend himself. He was to spend the last years of his life in an nursing home as one of the first publicized sufferers of Alzheimer's disease.

Fifty years after he first stepped on campus, Delyte Morris is remembered in the state as a slightly shady character who built an institution of suspect standards at the expense of other state schools. Instead of being seen as the major, world-class university Morris created at Carbondale, The University that shouldn't have happened, BUT DID is measured by the citizens of Illinois, the legislature, and the board of higher education by the disastrous events of 1969-1970 that destroyed the man. As a result, a major resource of Illinois today remains largely misunderstood and underutilized.

About this edition

• Publisher: Devil's Kitchen Pr
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0966436407
• ISBN 13: 9780966436402
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 338