Richard L. Morrill

Richard Leslie Morrill (born June 4, 1939) is an American educator and former academic administrator who is the chancellor of the University of Richmond. He was president of Salem College, Centre College, and the University of Richmond for various periods between 1979 and 1998.

Morrill earned undergraduate degrees from Brown University and Yale University and completed his doctorate at Duke University. He joined the faculty at Wells College in 1967 and afterwards taught at what is now Chatham University; his first position in administration came as executive assistant to the president at Chatham. He spent two years at Pennsylvania State University as a member of the faculty and administration afterward. In 1979, he was elected president of Salem College, a women's liberal arts college in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In his term of nearly three years, he prioritized keeping Salem's focus on the liberal arts, and he completed roughly half of a $12.2 million fundraiser.

Morrill became president of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, in June 1982. During his six year-term, Centre became the first hosts of the new Kentucky Governor's Scholars Program and received $3.5 million in grants from the F. W. Olin Foundation to build Franklin W. Olin Hall, which was dedicated in October 1988. The school had reached a record-high enrollment of 850 students by the end of his presidency and had increased faculty salaries by 60%. He departed Centre to become president of the University of Richmond, whose endowment doubled over the course of his ten-year term. The school hosted a U.S. presidential debate in October 1992 and completed a $164 million fundraiser near the end of Morrill's term. He retired effective at the end of the 1997–1998 academic year.