Professor Burnis R. Morris earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Mississippi in 1973 and an M.P.A. in Public Administration from the University of Dayton in 1977. He joined Marshall’s faculty as the Carter G. Woodson Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications in 2003, was named a Distinguished Drinko Fellow in 2011, and received a Senior Faculty Distinguished Artists and Scholars Award as well as a West Virginia History Hero award in 2016. Morris has also received a John Marshall Scholars award and has been recognized as a “National Trailblazer of Diversity” by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. His work has been supported by six grants from the Dow Jones News Fund, five grants from the West Virginia Humanities Council, three grants from the Knight Foundation, and a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In 2016, Morris began directing the Dr. Carter G. Woodson Lyceum. As a journalism historian, he has authored four books, including Carter G Woodson: History, the Black Press, and Public Relations (2017), and numerous articles and essays such as “Dr. Carter G. Woodson: A Century of Making Black Lives Matter,” published in Radical Roots: Public History and Social Justice (2021). At the request of the president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Morris wrote an article for the society’s centennial in 2015, “Carter G. Woodson: The Early Years, 1875-1903,” which covers Woodson’s time as a coal miner, student, and principal in West Virginia. Morris contributed another article about Woodson to the Journal of African American History, “A Woodson Legacy: The Black Press Partnership” (2023). Before academe, Morris served as a reporter, business editor, night city editor, assistant business manager, and marketing services director in Dayton, Atlanta, Austin, and West Palm Beach. He began his career as an intern at The New York Times and having been the first Black student at the University of Mississippi named to Who’s Who. He is also a former Freedom Forum First Amendment Center professional scholar at Vanderbilt University. Morris currently serves as co-chair, with Marshall President Brad Smith, of the Centennial of Negro History Week/Black History Month Committee.
