Eleanor Saunders Morris

Eleanor Saunders Morris, a Chapel Hill native, lifelong North Carolina resident, and former director of the Office of Scholarships and Student Aid at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, died on February 16 at the Pines Health Center at Carolina Meadows. The cause was amyloidosis. She was 92.

Eleanor was a leader in the field of student financial aid for many years, serving in key roles in the UNC system and in professional networks and organizations. Throughout her career, she worked for equal opportunity by removing financial barriers to higher education for students who otherwise could not afford it.

Eleanor was the older of two daughters of J. Maryon “Spike” Saunders and Susan Rose Saunders of Chapel Hill. Her sister, Susan M. Saunders, died in 2013. She is survived by two sons, William T. Morris (and his wife, Penny H. Morris) of Durham, and Joseph M. Morris (and his wife, Eve C. Gartner) of Brooklyn, NY, and by five grandchildren: Benjamin Morris of Oakland, CA, Anna Morris of Chapel Hill, Emily Morris of Durham, Sadie Gartner-Morris of Brooklyn, and Isaac Morris of Brooklyn.

A product of the Chapel Hill public schools, where her mother was a teacher, Eleanor attended Women’s College (now UNC-Greensboro) for one year before transferring to UNC-Chapel Hill, where she graduated with an English degree in 1955. She was a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority, wrote for The Daily Tar Heel, served in student government, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

She married the late William T. Morris, Jr. of Asheville in 1956. The marriage ended in divorce in 1964. She raised their two boys on her own in Asheville, Chapel Hill, and Greensboro. In later life, until her last days, she was an energetic and devoted grandmother.

Eleanor began her career in student financial aid in 1964, taking a job in the student aid office at UNC-Chapel Hill. In 1969, she was named student aid director at UNC-Greensboro, a post she held until 1980, when she returned home to Chapel Hill to serve as UNC’s director. In dedicating so many years to UNC, Eleanor followed in the footsteps of her father, who served as the university’s Alumni Secretary for 43 years.

Eleanor acted on the belief that financial need should be the chief basis for awarding grants and scholarships to undergraduate students. Amid the shifting political pressures and budgets of the 1980s and 1990s, she was a constant voice for prioritizing need-based aid at UNC and beyond. She helped expand UNC’s need-based James M. Johnston Scholarship program, and worked to deepen ties between the university and scholarship donors.

Eleanor also pushed to simplify what she often described as an absurdly complex process of applying for aid and administering federal aid programs. While known for running an efficient operation, Eleanor and her staff strived to create an environment where the personal circumstances of students and employees mattered. She took special pride in making it possible for first-generation college students to attend Carolina, and great satisfaction in getting to know those students, as well as in mentoring younger colleagues in her office and the wider field who shared that core commitment.

Eleanor was honored with UNC’s C. Knox Massey Distinguished Service Award in 1992 and the Distinguished Service Medal from the General Alumni Association in 1996. Upon her retirement in 1998, UNC’s Trustees passed a resolution of appreciation stating, among other things, that “her skills, knowledge, and compassion have made her the kind of person students remember throughout their lives.”

Beyond UNC, Eleanor played a range of professional leadership roles, including as president of the Southern Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, as a trustee of the College Board, and as chair of the College Scholarship Service Council. Two achievement awards in the field now bear her name.

Eleanor continued to serve the university after her retirement, including as an elected member of the GAA board, which she chaired in 2009-2010. She was also active for many years in the Chapel Hill Historical Society, and was a lifelong member of University Presbyterian Church.

For much of her life, Eleanor lived in the home on West University Drive where she and her sister were raised. She got plants to flower in the rocky soil there into her late 70s, and then moved to Carolina Meadows in 2013, where she found new friends, more volunteer work, and a smaller garden to tend. She greatly enjoyed her role as editor of Voices, the literary journal at Carolina Meadows, for several years.

Known as “ER” to her family and friends, Eleanor kept up a busy rhythm in retirement: committee meetings, Saturday mornings with her walking group (a brisk walk followed by a biscuit), summer trips with family to Isle au Haut, Maine, travels abroad with her sister or friends, visits to and from grandchildren, and reunions with her beloved cousins. And, of course, fanatical devotion to UNC basketball.

A sharp decline in Eleanor’s health began in 2023. Her final months and years, though difficult, were enriched by the companionship and care she received from countless nursing assistants, nurses, doctors, social workers, and others at Carolina Meadows, AuthoraCare Hospice, and elsewhere, including the staff who cook, clean, wash clothes, deliver meals, provide beauty care, and keep the Pines running. Her family will be forever grateful for their kindness.

Those who knew Eleanor will miss her unique spirit. She was generous, warm, and funny. She was also driven, exacting, focused – some would say obsessive – and prodigiously productive. She had a genuine and undying interest in other people, and she lit up when encountering friends and strangers alike. But she relished time alone with a book or productive project – particularly one that involved delighting her grandchildren or other loved ones (her idea of relaxation). From her parents and grandparents, Eleanor knew deeply the parts of North Carolina (warts and all) that shaped her family; she passed on that history through a trove of inherited anecdotes. She took the state’s motto, esse quam videri, to heart: to be, rather than to seem. But that didn’t keep her from dressing up, almost every day, in a sharp and brightly colored outfit.

Eleanor also inherited the notion that the University of North Carolina ought to serve all the people of the state. She did her best to fulfill that calling and transmit it to others.

A memorial service will be held at University Presbyterian Church in Chapel Hill on Sunday, March 15 at 2:00 pm, with a reception to follow. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Eleanor Saunders Morris Scholarship Fund at UNC. Checks may be made payable to UNC with “656973” in the memo line, and mailed to UNC-Chapel Hill, P.O. Box 309, Chapel Hill, NC 27514-0309. Or donations may be made online here: https://give.unc.edu/donate?t=ESMorris