Haskell Monroe

Haskell Moorman Monroe, Jr. (born March 18, 1931) is an American educator and university administrator.

Early Life and Education

Haskell Monroe is the only child of Haskell Moorman Monroe, Sr and Myrtle Marie Monroe (née Jackson) of Garland, Texas. The family lived in Garland, Texas until several moves to Wichita Falls, Texas and Fort Smith, Arkansas 1941. In early 1942, the family moved to Orange, Texas where the elder Monroe was employed at Consolidated Steel Corporation shipyard.

Haskell Jr. graduated from Orange High School in 1948. He went on to attend Austin College in Sherman, Texas where he was awarded both a Bachelor's and Master's degrees in History. While working on his Master's degree, he taught history at nearby Denison High School in Denison, Texas and served in the Navy Reserve.

After earning his Master's degree, he served in the United States Navy, stationed at Charleston, South Carolina.

Upon muster from the navy, he continued his studies at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He completed his PhD in History from Rice in 1962.

Career in Academia

His first teaching position was at Schreiner College in Kerrville, Texas for the 1959 summer term.

Following Schreiner, he was given the opportunity to teach history for the 1959/60 academic year at Texas Agricultural & Mechanical College (now Texas A&M University) in College Station, Texas. During the spring term, he was offered a full-time, ongoing position at Texas A&M where he remained on the faculty until 1980. While at Texas A&M he was appointed their first Dean of Faculties As secretary of the Aspirations Committee, he drafted the report which recommended some key changes at Texas A&M in the early 1960s – including co-education, non-compulsory Corps membership, racial integration, and high admission standards; and as Dean of Faculties was part of the 1970s administrative team which laid the basic foundations for today’s Texas A&M University. His colleagues selected him for the Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching the first year he was eligible for that honor, 1964.

In 1980, he was appointed as the President of the University of Texas at El Paso, a position he held until 1987.

He began serving as the 4th chancellor and 18th chief executive officer of the University of Missouri campus in Columbia, Missouri in 1987. Haskell retired as chancellor in 1993 after receiving budget cuts from the Missouri State Legislature. After his retirement he served professor of history. Haskell was also editor of the "Papers of Jefferson Davis 1808-1840, Vol 1" published in 1971. He is currently Dean of Faculties Emeritus at Texas A&M University.