When Morris became president in 1948, enrollment at SIU was 3,013. By the end of his career, enrollment on the two campuses totaled nearly 35,000. He instituted Ph.D. programs and created family housing. He lobbied for and got the TV station, the FM radio station, the university press, the news service, and outdoor education. Long before it was fashionable he promoted ecology, just as he provided facilities for the handicapped years before society demanded them. He brought to the school such luminaries as R. Buckminster Fuller. Through it all he demanded that SIU be an integral part of the southern Illinois community.