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Hall of FameThe long and varied history of Morrison Constitution Hall
By Claire Moncla
Baylor students often take summer school at community colleges in their
hometowns and transfer the credits. However, there is one class that
students will not get credit for unless they take it at Baylor:
"American Constitutional Development." That requirement came at the
request of Mr. and Mrs. R. W. Morrison, who funded the building of
Morrison Constitution Hall in 1954.
 Many
changes have taken place in Morrison since the family's request and the
building's construction. "American Constitutional Development" is now
taught in Draper, and Baylor's law school, once housed in Morrison, has
moved across University Parks Drive into the Sheila and Walter Umphrey
Law Center. Yet, throughout its changes, Morrison Hall has remained an
important building for the university, housing not just the law school,
but the Graduate School and the Honors College as well.
When Morrison opened its doors in July 1955, it was the first
flat-roofed building designed for campus, and it used air-conditioning,
a rarity at that time. Several months later, on November 4, 1955, Leon
Jaworski, LLB '25, spoke at the dedication of the building. The
three-storied structure held functioning courtrooms, classrooms,
administrative and faculty offices, a law library, and student and
faculty lounges. In a 1954 Lariat interview, then law dean Abner McCall called the soon-to-be-completed building "the best" out of the five Texas law schools.
Baylor renovated Morrison Hall in 1973 and dedicated the Leon Jaworski
wing on April 17, 1974, Baylor's Law Day; the wing added another 15,000
square feet to the building. Morrison underwent renovations again in
1983 with the addition of the advocacy wing. The hall included a
replica of Jaworski's personal office, which Baylor's law school used
for meetings, scheduled tours, and interviews. After forty-six years,
the law school relocated in 2001, moving into the Sheila and Walter
Umphrey Law Center, which is more than twice the size of Morrison.
But Morrison was still a coveted building. "We were desperate for that
space," said Lois Ferguson, Baylor facilities utilization planner. "We
had departments that were growing." After the law school moved out, it
took less than a year for other departments to move in, Ferguson said.
"There were some renovations, but they were mostly refurbishing," she
said, explaining that the courtrooms became classrooms, and important
fixtures like the Leon Jaworski office replica were moved to the new
law center. "We renamed and renumbered halls and classrooms," Ferguson
said.
Now Morrison could be compared to an umbrella organization, housing
several academic divisions under one roof. The building contains the
departments of philosophy and classics; the undergraduate Honors
College, which includes the dean's office, the Honors Program,
University Scholars, and Baylor Interdisciplinary Core; the dean's
office of operations for the Graduate School; the Institute of Faith
and Learning; the Center for Christian Ethics; offices for the Modern
Foreign Languages Department; and the Baylor Copy Center. "Every inch
of the building is being used," Ferguson said. One peculiar feature of
the building is its organization—or lack thereof. "There are
combinations of classes and offices, and you can't classify any floor
as one or the other," she said. Ferguson also added that Morrison still
contains the old law library, now an off-limits storage facility for
critical archives.
Today, after fifty-four years, Morrison continues to hold parts of
Baylor's history in its walls—the history of a successful law school,
established graduate school, and prestigious honors college. With such
diversity under one roof, it is a tribute to one of Baylor's 2012
goals, enhancing the involvement of the entire Baylor family.
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