Most Wichita State students have taken Public Speaking (COMM 111). The course is required to graduate and, for some students, it might be the only communication class they’re ever in.
Connie Morris taught at WSU for more than 35 years and helped shape public speaking classes at WSU. Morris, a retired faculty member with the Elliott School of Communication, died last week at age 82. Former colleagues remember her as an inspiring mentor, a caring teacher and a friend.
“Connie was such a great educator, and students loved her,” said Sandy Sipes, a lecturer at the Elliott School. “She was firm but fair. She was so kind, and yet she had such a passion for us learning the material and not just learning the material, applying it to our lives.”
Before working alongside Morris, Sipes was her student. When she came to Wichita State to pursue her second degree, in teaching, Sipes ended up in Morris’ COMM 111 class.
“She became, very quickly, my mentor,” Sipes said. “I loved her teaching style. I fell in love with the class, even though I was dreading taking it, and by the end of the semester, Connie and I had talked a lot, and she said, ‘I know you want to teach, but why don’t you apply for the graduate teaching positions at the Elliott School?’”
“The rest was history,” Sipes, who has been teaching at WSU ever since, said.
Morris wasn’t just a beloved teacher. According to Eric Wilson, a senior educator at the Elliott School, Morris was fundamental in cultivating the school and its public speaking program.
The Elliott School was formed in 1989 when WSU’s Speech Communication and Journalism departments merged. When the Speech Communication program merged into the Elliott School, Morris followed.
“I think just (her legacy is) the reputation for strong teaching, for having a strong (communication) studies and a public speaking program,” Wilson said. “She was, I think, instrumental in helping establish our … public speaking program and advocating for that at the university.”
Sipes said Morris was “a stickler for research.”
“Whenever students would complain about, ‘I don’t have a topic, I don’t know what I’m going to talk about,’ she would look at them and say, ‘There is nothing new under the sun. You can find information on everything,’” Sipes said. “She really instilled in me that ethical, moral compass of — if you’re going to talk in front of people, you better know what it is you’re going to say and you have to be ethical in what you say and truthful in what you say because what you say matters.”
Becky Nordyke is a former Elliott School faculty member. She said she and Morris had been friends for years, ever since Nordyke started working at the school.
“I moved here and didn’t know anyone,” Nordyke said. “I just called the speech department (at WSU) and said, “Do you have any part-time jobs?” And they had one. And she introduced herself and got me acclimated to Wichita and to the speech department, and became my mentor, my friend and my lunch date.”
She said she saw Morris just days before she went into the hospital.
“It’s just really hard to believe that she was here and just gone,” Nordyke said. “It’s pretty devastating for a lot of people because she was such an institution in our department.”
