Jennie Burks attended the university and also Lincoln Memorial University. From 1910 to 1914, she served as superintendent of the Claiborne County Schools and is believed to be the first woman elected superintendent of a Tennessee county school system. She was the first female president of the East Tennessee Education Association, and in 1914 she … Continued

Lucy Shields Morgan, daughter of UT President Harcourt Morgan, received the BA in biology from UT in 1922 (while her father was UT president) and the MS in biology in 1932. She received an MA from Columbia University in 1929 and the PhD from Yale in 1938. She began a program in community health in … Continued

Wiley Morgan graduated from the university in 1894, but his use of a “clatter machine” almost prevented the granting of his degree. Members of the faculty, who said it had been “rattled off on one of those printing machines,” questioned his typewritten senior thesis, “Heating and Ventilation.” Dr. Charles Wait, however, championed his cause and … Continued

US Senator Justin S. Morrill (1810–1898), a native of Vermont, member of the US House of Representatives for 12 years and the US Senate for 32 years, introduced legislation in 1857 providing for grants of public land to endow at least one college in each state in which the “leading object shall be, without excluding … Continued

The first building named Morrill Hall in honor of Senator Justin Morrill was the Agricultural Hall built in 1880 at a cost of $3,278.10. It replaced the White House, named for Moses White, in which the Preparatory Department had had a long tenure. The new building contained the classrooms and laboratories of the agriculture program, … Continued

The second university building to be known as Morrill Hall was dedicated on May 28, 1908, and housed not only the Agricultural College headquarters but also botany, zoology, and entomology. This building, four stories high (with a basement), 160 feet wide and 60 feet deep, was located on the Hill where Hesler Biology Building now … Continued

The name for the new 15-story dormitory under construction was announced to be Morrill Hall in August 1967. As in the case of presidents of the university memorialized by the residence halls of the Presidential Court, Justin Morrill, who introduced the congressional bill establishing land-grant universities, had been previously honored—in his case by the naming … Continued

Morrill Hall resident Dennis Robinson was killed in an elevator accident in the residence hall on March 14, 1976. Robinson was killed when he apparently pried open the doors of the stopped elevator and attempted to jump through the open doors to the floor below. He fell about 60 feet down the shaft. Robinson’s mother, … Continued

Katherine Briana “Breezy” Bilbrey, a freshman in chemical engineering with plans to go to medical school, died April 26, 2010, of medical reasons overnight in her room in Morrill Hall. Characterized by her friends as optimistic and energetic, as able to keep a secret, and as a person about whom no one would say an … Continued

Henry Morse served as campus planner for the University of Tennessee system from 1964 to 1985, during the period of greatest physical growth of the Knoxville campus. He and Malcolm Rice, the university architect, designed the campus west of Volunteer Boulevard when the urban renewal act allowed the acquisition of land by UT. Morse was … Continued