Karl F. Morrison of Princeton, New Jersey, has many lifelong connections with the University of Mississippi, which he is honoring with a $1 million gift to advance children’s literacy.
His major gift establishes the Karl and Gladys Morrison Endowment Fostering Excellence in Children’s Literacy, which supports the Center for Excellence in Literacy Instruction (CELI) in the School of Education. The endowment honors his late parents who were members of the Ole Miss family — his father a professor of management for 37 years and his mother a longtime member of the administrative staff.
Morrison now cherishes how his parents conveyed literacy to their children and grandchildren, planting reading and creative writing.
“We tend to take reading for granted and forget that it can be hard won, not a birthright,” said Morrison. “My father recalled how his mother, my grandmother, helped him for all time. The family budget was very tight, but my grandmother worked and saved enough money to buy all volumes of ‘The Harvard Classics’ for him. He could quote verses he learned from those books until he was very old.
“All through life, children learn skills of literacy that they can adapt and communicate to their own advantage. I hope that my gift helps plan a long-lasting enthusiasm for how literacy’s skills can sustain them for whatever they wrestle with in a constantly changing world.”
Morrison grew up in Oxford, Mississippi, and earned an undergraduate degree in history from Ole Miss in 1956 before pursuing master’s and doctoral degrees from Cornell University as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. He began teaching at Cornell, then served on the faculties of Stanford University, the University of Minnesota, Harvard University and the University of Chicago, where he was chair of the history department. He served on the faculty selection committee for the new University of Cyprus and retired as distinguished professor at Rutgers University.
A significant crossroad in his youth influenced his career path. Ole Miss Professor J. Allen Cabaniss had decisively changed Morrison’s focus from ancient history to medieval history. And, in just two years, Cabaniss taught Morrison New Testament Greek.
Morrison also worked on medieval coinage at the British Museum in London and was invited to join a group of coin experts through whom he met his late wife, Anne. They married in 1964 in Ramsbury, Wiltshire, England and had two children, Sarah and Andrew.
Late in life, he trained and was ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church.
“Some people are curious about being a priest and a historian at the same time,” Morrison said. “I take comfort in the fact that Frederick A.P. Barnard, the great founder of Ole Miss, was ordained as an Episcopalian priest shortly before joining the university and served for a time as rector of St. Peter’s Church in Oxford. Deafness is a second condition for imaginary empathy that I shared with Barnard.
“I took this step after feeling called for a very long time. When I talked to Angela Rutherford, the CELI director, she also described her work at Ole Miss with literacy as a calling. When I was 16, I first talked to a minister about going to seminary. He asked me, ‘Would life be full if you didn’t do this?’ I see the connection of literacy also as a gateway to spirituality — greater access to know your humanity.”
Morrison said his calling to the priesthood is directly connected to his gift to Ole Miss.
“What connects the priesthood and my gift is the pull of empathy. Empathy has shaped my scholarly work for many years. I have written two books on it, one of which won the gold medal of the Medieval Academy of America. In middle life, it led me to have two internships in prison ministry. It also brought rewards from work-study visits to the Church and Hospital of the Holy Spirit first in Haiti and later in Tanzania,” said Morrison.
Morrison has researched the legacy of slavery and its connection to literacy, recognizing literacy could have broken slavery’s long chain of oppression and inspiring his support of the CELI.
“Empathy is one of the emotions that can make us tick. When I heard about the Barksdale Reading Institute, and then the continuation of its work by the CELI, the agonizing misery I had seen overseas shot to mind. Empathy brought pictures of the young children in CELI’s care sharply to mind the privation without reprise inherited in other countries and slavery in the New World passed on through two centuries,” he said.
“Then the call came. I knew then that something deep in me wanted to help — most of all to help them when they are seeking the purposes of their lives.”
Others who want to help may do so here.
Morrison’s support will enhance CELI as it works with partners to build family, educator and community capacity to nurture children’s language, literacy and executive functioning skills. Founded in 2007, CELI sponsors programs throughout Mississippi including Mission Acceleration, Mississippi Jumpstart, Mind in the Making, Parent Academy and Thirty Million Words.
“Dr. Morrison’s exceptional gift will ensure that more children and their families have access to programs that grow and strengthen children’s literacy development, setting them on a path to academic and lifelong success,” said Rutherford, a professor of teacher education.
She added, “Mississippi’s children are worth the investment because they define our state’s future. CELI staff and I are extremely grateful and humbled by Dr. Morrison’s generosity and are so excited to see the impact of this investment on our children’s development.”
Funds from Morrison’s gift will support and increase the number of Mississippi Campaign for Grade-Level Reading communities to help ensure all children can read on grade level by the end of third grade. This statewide campaign is based on the belief that schools succeed with community support, said Rutherford.
“Engaged communities mobilize to remove barriers, expand opportunities and help parents and schools fulfill their roles and responsibilities to serve as full partners in their children’s success,” she said.
Another focus will be on sustaining the family engagement and support efforts that are being implemented with grant funding. CELI also plans to purchase a van to transport UM students who work with pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade students in communities outside of Lafayette County.
Gifts to the Karl and Gladys Morrison Endowment Fostering Excellence in Children’s Literacy can be made by sending a check, with the fund’s name noted on the memo line, to the University of Mississippi Foundation, 406 University Ave., Oxford, MS 38655; or online here.
For more information on supporting the School of Education, contact Kelly Smith Marion, director of development, at ksmith13@olemiss.edu or 662-915-2007; or Drew Newcomb, development associate for estate and planned giving, at newcomb@olemiss.edu or 662-915-2270.
By Tina H. Hahn/UM Development