Dr. Robert Warren Morse (May 25, 1921 – January 19, 2001) was the first president of

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...

, and the fifth and last president of Case Institute of Technology.

Career

A native of Boston, Massachusetts, and a member of the class of 1943 at

Bowdoin College Bowdoin College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine. When Bowdoin was chartered in 1794, Maine was still a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The college offers 34 majors and 36 minors, as well as several joint eng ...

, Morse served for 3 years in the U.S. Navy, rising to the rank of lieutenant. He received his master's degree in 1947 and PhD under R. Bruce Lindsay in physics in 1949 from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

. There he was a faculty member from 1946 to 1964. He became an assistant professor in 1949, a full professor in 1958, physics department head in 1960, and college dean in 1962. In 1956, Morse took part in the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

' Nobska Project, which was instrumental in the creation of the UGM-27 Polaris missile submarine. In 1964, he was named

Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research and Development) The Assistant Secretary of the Navy (AIR) was a civilian office of the United States Department of the Navy. The Assistant Secretary of the Navy (AIR) initially reported to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy and later to the Under Secretary of the ...

for the United States Navy. Dissatisfied with the United States' role in Vietnam, Morse left the Navy in 1966 to become president of the Case Institute of Technology. In 1967, Case merged with Western Reserve, with Morse becoming the first president of

. He remained there until 1971, when he left to become director of research at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where he retired in 1983. He helped to found Woods Hole's joint doctoral program with MIT. In 1999 a chair was endowed in his honor at Woods Hole. Upon his death in 2001, Morse was survived by two sons, a daughter, and five grandchildren. His wife, Alice Cooper Morse, died in February 2000 after 57 years of marriage.

References

External links

*http://www.cwru.edu/its/archives/presidents/morsummary.htm *https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/26/us/robert-w-morse-79-educator-and-a-designer-of-submarines.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Morse 1921 births 2001 deaths Bowdoin College alumni Presidents of Case Western Reserve University United States Assistant Secretaries of the Navy Fellows of the American Physical Society Brown University alumni 20th-century American academics