The controversial construction of a research overhead funded presidential home tarnished the legacy left by Delyte Morris perhaps more than any other factor.

The almost 30 year old controversy brewed over the expensive cost of the house, the use of overhead research dollars to fund the house, and whether SIU obtained permission from the state to build the house. The scandal followed Morris as he retired amidst criticism and pressure in 1970.

It was a pathetic loss that a man that we knew had done great things for the university was caught on the Stone Center, David Christensen, an emeritus faculty member of geology, said. There was mainly a feeling of sorrow for him.

Christensen, who worked at SIUC from 1961- 1987, said the scandal and student unrest prompted many faculty in 1970 to question why Morris didn’t retire two years earlier.

If he’d retired two years earlier he’d have retired as a great man with a green wreath around his neck and his head held high, Christensen said.

The Stone House controversy originated in 1949 with the SIU Board of Trustees’ idea that the University should provide a home for its president. This led to the establishment of the first university-built presidential home a house that faced Altgeld Hall located south of the Old Baptist Foundation. In 1954 the trustees decided the University should develop a residence for the president on campus.

Twelve years later, plans for the Stone Center were in the works. In 1968, Morris under the advice of John Rendleman, SIUC’s vice president for business affairs, made the decision to allow the University’s Physical Plant to build the facility without a specified contract.

SIUC had accumulated surplus funds from research and training contracts and Morris in conjunction with the board decided those funds would be used to build the new presidential residence and have the building constructed by in-house resources. These decisions were made because administrators thought it would be cheaper for the University using these methods.

A second issue of controversy developed as the Illinois Board of Higher Education contended that the University did not seek its permission to build the house. SIU took the stance that the building was not the construction of a new facility, but the relocation and improvement of an existing, University-owned structure. In addition, the construction was being financed by the University’s overhead funds and thus approval was not needed from the IBHE to proceed with the building plans.

From this point on, the creation of the presidential residence and those involved with the planning were under close scrutiny, as controversy would surround Morris’ involvement in the push for a home that he, himself could occupy.

So the question was then put to Morris by Southern Illinoisan reporter Ben Gelman regarding how much his new home would cost. After Gelman threw out a few figures, Morris replied it would cost more than $250,000 to build, and Gelman’s story ran with that number. However it wasn’t until August, when Chancellor Robert MacVicar sent a letter to board members, that the true expenses incurred in the construction were revealed to be $898,496.51, a cost that surprised and concerned the board.

Many faculty also believed that because the funds were generated from overhead from research they should have been used on research or faculty activities.

The price tag on the home also seemed excessive to James Holderman, executive director of the IBHE, and he requested a detailed report on the facility and construction was halted.

Numerous factors contributed to the large expense associated with building the house. Chief among these was the inclusion of five guest rooms, each with their own bathroom. The 32.5 acre property located across from Campus Lake and away from existing University facilities also increased the cost because of the need to run extra utility lines out to the building.

The public scrutiny prompted the Board of Trustees to go into an illegal closed session where the decision to shift the blame and controversy onto Delyte Morris would be made to save their own jobs, a true act of irony, for they were the same people who had earlier voted to construct a $975,000 facility to provide a campus residence for the president of the university.

“Morris had been so successful for so long that he had a lot of opponents just waiting for something to happen,” Robert Harper, a former SIU faculty member.

Harper is also the author of “The University that Shouldn’t Have Happened, But Did,” a book chronicling the Morris years. He said Morris was unable to defend himself from the criticism.

The real problem was that his Board got scared and they all tried to pin it on him, and by that time he was already failing because of Alzheimer’s.

As the controversy swelled, Chicago philanthropist W. Clement Stone and his wife Jessie made the decision to bail Morris and SIUC out of the financial controversy with a $1 million donation made in the form of stock in Stone’s company, Combined Insurance Company of America. With the contribution, SIU was able to acquire and complete the house with a total cost of $1,050,000. In recognition, the facilities’ were named the W. Clement and Jessie V. Stone house in 1982, later amended to the Stone House and eventually the Stone Center.

Stone would say he made his contribution because he felt the project “had been unfairly criticized by people who simply don’t know what it’s all about…by describing the project simply as a residence for the University’s president, it has been made to appear that the costs of $900,000 are excessive.”

The financial controversy was over, but the decisions made by Morris and Board of Trustees would linger and add to rising controversies that would lead to Morris’ cessation of presidential duties on August 31, 1970. The scandal had done its damage to Morris’ reputation and the facility would be completed in 1971 without him ever having lived in it.