Donald Harvard Morrison, 1914-1959

THE College community was stunned by the death of Donald Harvard Morrison, Provost of the College and Professor of Government, on March 17. Provost Morrison, who was 44 years old, died in his sleep of a heart attack, at the Princeton, N. J., home of his friend and former teacher, Professor John F. Sly, chairman of Princeton's department of politics.

Provost Morrison had spent Monday the 16th in New York City on Dartmouth business, meeting with foundation executives, and later in the day he had gone to Princeton to stay overnight with Professor Sly, with whom he had earlier been associated in government studies. Next morning, when he did not answer his hosts' efforts to awaken him, they became alarmed and upon entering the room found him dead.

Professor Morrison assumed the newly created post of Provost at Dartmouth in 1955, after serving as Dean of the Faculty since 1947. He had primary responsibility for the academic affairs of the College and its three associated schools, and he worked closely with President Dickey in overall administration of the College as well.

The educational leadership of Provost Morrison has permeated the whole of Dartmouth College in the past decade. Dedicated to sharpening the intellectual purpose of the College and achieving a new level of excellence in every part of its educational program, he played a major role in strengthening the faculty and stepping up research activities to go along with good teaching, and he was a key figure in the long planning and final adoption of Dartmouth's new three-term, three-course program, now in its first year. In recent months Professor Morrison had given a great deal of time to the development of a new Medical School curriculum, and another major responsibility was the vice-chairmanship of the Trustees Planning Committee.

President Dickey especially will feel the loss of Provost Morrison as an associate in the daily work of the College. "The death of Donald Harvard Morrison, Provost of Dartmouth College, is a shock and loss beyond the reach of words," he said in a statement on the day of the Provost's death. "At this moment we can only know that Dartmouth and the world of higher education have lost a leader whose example and influence will long be a part of our best. His memory will always be a precious thing to all who knew him as friend, colleague and teacher."

DONALD HARVARD MORRISON was born in Morgantown, West Virginia, on October 10, 1914, and received his A.B. degree from West Virginia University in 1936. That same year he began his graduate studies at Princeton and joined Professor Sly as research assistant in the Princeton Local Government Survey, 1936-40. He received his Master's degree from Princeton in 1939 and his Ph.D. in 1941-

In 1940 Provost Morrison became Instructor in Government at Louisiana State University. There he was also Director of the Bureau of Government Research and edited the Louisiana Municipal Review. He was promoted to Assistant Professor in 1942 but left that year to join the U. S. Bureau of the Budget in Washington, where he was administrative analyst and budget examiner until 1945, when he came to Dartmouth as Assistant Professor of Government. He was promoted to full professor in 1947 and shortly after, on July 1 of that year, was named Dean of the Faculty at the age of 32. In 1955 he became the first holder of the newly created position of Provost of the College.

Provost Morrison was co-author of TheUnited States at War, published in 1946, and of American Democracy in Theoryand Practice, which appeared in 1951. He wrote about his special field in political journals, and after becoming Dean of the Faculty he wrote a number of articles about college teaching and faculty policies.

He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the American Political Science Association, and Kappa Alpha. Winner of the Brown Prize in Constitutional Law, he received a Social Science Research Council grant in 1942, made a tour of western colleges in 1953 under a "young administrators" grant from the Carnegie Corporation, and served as chairman of the Committee on College Teaching Resources of the Ford Foundation's Fund for the Advancement of Education.

Provost Morrison was married in 1938 to Elizabeth Ann Gibson of Lamont, Mich., who survives him with three children: Donald, 11, Elizabeth, 8, and William, 7. Other survivors are his father, Lewis F. Morrison of Morgantown, W. Va.; a brother, Wilbur C. Morrison, also of Morgantown; and two sisters, Mrs. George Fogtman, Cumberland, Md., and Mrs. Walter Stonestreet, Fairmont, W. Va.

A memorial service, attended by virtually the entire faculty and administrative staff of the College, was held in Rollins Chapel on Saturday, March 21, with the Rev. Fred Berthold Jr. '45, Dean of the Tucker Foundation, officiating.

Provost Morrison