This Week in Texas Methodist History  November 3

Umphrey Lee Inaugurated as 4^th President of SMU, November 6, 1939

On November 9, 1939 Umphrey Lee was inaugurated as the 4^th president of Southern Methodist University.   Lee, born in 1893 in Indiana, moved with his family to Brownwood, Texas in 1909.  He attended Daniel Baker College, then received his A. B. from Trinity University in 1914.  SMU opened in 1915, and Lee enrolled for graduate work in the new university.  He was a member of the university’s first graduating class.  He later received his doctorate from Columbia University. 

Lee served Highland Park Methodist Church in Dallas for thirteen years, and taught homiletics at SMU.  In 1936 he moved to Nashville and was Dean of the School of Theology at Vanderbilt University.  

At the 1938 General Conference of the MECS Charles C. Selecman was elected bishop.  In November, 1938 SMU trustees named Lee as his successor.  

Monday, November 6 began with a religious convocation at which Bishop Selecman presided.  The main speaker was Bishop Charles L. Mead of Kansas City who had formerly been a bishop in the MEC.  Later that day Bishop Ivan Lee Holt presided over the formal inauguration.  Chancellor Oliver C. Carmichael of Vanderbilt University was the main speaker.   Bishop A. Frank Smith, Chair of the SMU Trustees formally invested President Lee. 

Lee’s inaugural address made reference to the fact that SMU was a comparatively young institution.  He said that the school it could not fall back on the authority of ivied walls and ancient characters, it could profit from a century of educational experience.  His address stressed how SMU should follow a middle path stressing the human relationship between student and teacher.  He wanted to reject the dogmatism of classicism and the other dogmatism of vocational education.  

Lee spent 15 years as SMU President.  Those years were marked by significant expansion of the student body, physical plant, and academic programs.  Lee also wrote several books.  

He died in June 1958.  He was succeeded by Dr. Willis Tate.