Sterling M. McMurrin papers, 1830-2006

Sterling Moss McMurrin (1914-1996) was born 12 January 1914, in Woods Cross, Utah. After attending elementary and junior high school in Ogden, Sterling moved to Los Angeles in 1928 where he graduated from Manual Arts High School in 1931. Throughout the summers of his childhood years, McMurrin worked on the cattle and sheep ranches of the Deseret Livestock Company. Sterling returned to Utah as an undergraduate student at the University of Utah in 1933 and completed a B.A. degree in political science and history in 1936. Within a year he earned a M.A. degree in philosophy at the U of U. In 1938 McMurrin married Natalie Barbara Cotterel and entered graduate school at the University of Southern California. He finished his course work and passed his qualifying examinations for a doctorate in philosophy in 1943 and was granted a Ph.D. degree from U.S.C. in 1946. Sterling pursued post-doctoral studies at Columbia University, Princeton University, and at the Union Theological Seminary in the academic year of 1952-1953.

Mc Murrin's teaching career included teaching at religious and secular institutions. Sterling's nearly ten year teaching experience in the L.D.S. Department of Education (including a one year leave of absence) commenced in 1937 when he became a seminary instructor at the Sevier Stake in Richfield, Utah. The culmination of McMurrin's service to the L.D.S. Church occurred in the years 1943-1946 during which Sterling served as the Director of the Institute of Religion at the University of Arizona. An early indication that the leadership at the highest levels of the L.D.S. Church perceived that McMurrin held some unorthodox views of LDS teachings was evident when in 1940 President Heber Grant unsuccessfully strove to remove him from his seminary instuctor's position. This information can be culled from a letter of McMurrin to Hugh B. Brown which is located in Box 291. Subsequent to his tenure as a seminary instructor, Sterling taught L.D.S. Sunday School classes. Abortive attempts to excommunicate Mc Murrin occurred during the decade of 1950-1960. Materials associated with these endeavors can be seen in box 291. Sterling's religious views could be characterized as fluid and eclectic. In "Matters of Conscience," he admitted to L.Jackson Newell that he was a heretic who did not believe in the divinity of Christ, the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, and Joseph Smith's first vision. In interviews which were published in the winter 1983-1984 issue of "Free Inquiry, and in the "7th East Press, " Sterling stated that he was an agnostic who remained a member of the L.D.S. church. See Box 64 for this information. Despite the aforementioned opinions, McMurrin devoted a large part of his intellectual endeavors studying the importance of religion in American culture and co-authored a book on the New Testament.

Sterling's initial academic appointment took place in 1945 when the University of Southern California hired him as an assistant professor of philosophy. Within a year after Professor McMurrin received his Ph.D., E. E. Ericksen, the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Utah, attempted to recruit Sterling to join the faculty. Mc Murrin accepted the U. of U.'s offer in 1948 and was promoted to the post of a full professor in the Department of Philosophy. In 1964 Sterling was appointed as the E.E. Ericksen Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, one of many honors bestowed upon him in his long and illustrious career. Additional university positions mirrored McMurrin's diverse intellectual interests. During 1969-1970, he became a member of the departments of Education and History. Sterling taught summer school classes at Brigham Young University in 1947 and at the University of Southern California in 1953. He retired from teaching at the University of Utah in 1987. For Sterling's account of his teaching experiences, consult box 325.

One of the numerous talents which Professor McMurrin possessed was that of an administrator in an university and in a governmental setting. From 1954 until 1960, Sterling served as the Dean of the College of Letters and Science and in the academic year of 1960-1961 he performed the duties of the university's Academic Vice President. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy selected Professor Mc Murrin as the United States Commissioner of Education, a job which he held for one year. While he was in Washington, D. C., the president and the secretaries of State, Labor, and Health, Education and Welfare appointed Sterling to several important boards, commissions, and committees, including the Board of Foreign Scholarships, the National Commission for UNESCO, the Federal Commission on Instructional Technology, and the Mountain States Regional Manpower Advisory Committee. As the U. S. delegate to international educational conferences, Mc Murrin traveled to Japan, Chile, and Switzerland. He was also sent on a special mission to Iran as an advisor to the Chancellor of the University of Tehran. Soon after returning to the University of Utah, Sterling re-entered the university's administration first serving as Provost during 1965-1966, and then becoming Dean of the Graduate School, a position which he filled from 1966 until 1978.

Recognition of Professor McMurrin's national reputation as a prominent figure in the field of higher education was manifest in his appointment to a multitude of boards, commissions, councils and committees. A few examples are as follows: member of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; member of the Graduate Record Examination Board; member of the Board of the Agency for Instructional Television; member of the National Research Council's Board of Fellowships and Associateships; member of the Commission for the Study of School Integration in Chicago; member of the American Council of Education's Commission on Plans and Objectives for Higher Education; member of the Advisory Council of the National Humanities Insitute at Yale University; member of the Committee on the Management and Financing of Colleges; and a member of the Utah Endowment for the Humanities Committee.

Throughout his distinquished career, Professor McMurrin was the recipient of numerous awards, honors, and accolades. As early as 1961, Sterling began to accumulate a number of honorary degrees from American universities. These schools included the University of Utah, Delaware State College, the University of Southern California, Clark University, the University of Puget Sound, Pepperdine University, and Westminister College. Columbia University Teachers College, New York University, the University of Southern California, and the University of Guadalajara honored him for his exemplary contributions to the world of education. The Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters awarded McMurrin a citation of merit, and in 1984 he received the first Rosenblatt Prize for excellence in teaching, research, and administrative work at the Univeristy of Utah. Four years later, Sterling was granted the first Governor's Award in the Humanities. With funds provided by Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner, Westminster College initiated the Tanner-McMurrin Lecture Series in 1987 and six years later gave McMurrin, a member of Westminster's board of Trustees, the first Westminster College Heritage Award. On several occasions, the University of Utah expressed its gratutude for McMurrin's service to the university. In the 1980s and the early 1990's, the U of U created the Sterling M. McMurrin Presidential Endowed Chair in Religious Studies, established the Sterling M. McMurrin Distinguished Visiting Professor position, founded the Sterling M. McMurrin lecture series in Religion and Culture, and presented him with a College of Humanities' Distnguished Alumnus award at the 1992 annual commencement.

Professor McMurrin was very active in the publishing and the lecturing arenas. Sterling was either the author, co-author, or editor of twenty-three books. Among these works were "Contemporary Philosophy," "A History of Philosophy," "Theological Foundations of Mormon Religion," "Religion, Reason, and Truth: Historical Essays in the Philosophy of Religion," and Toward Understanding the New Testament." An excellent book which focuses upon various facets of Mc Murrin's life is entitled "Matters of Conscience: Conversations with Sterling M. McMurrin on Philosophy, Education, and Religion." Sterling published numerous articles and book reviews which appeared in a variety of scholarly, public interest, and popular journals. Some examples of these publications were "The Journal of Philosophy," "Journal of Thought," 'Journal of Secondary Education," "Western Humanities Review," "Dialogue," "Sunstone," "Saturday Review," "Journal of Home Economics," and "Ladies Home Journal." Evidence of McMurrin's popularity as a lecturer was manifest in the fact that eighty universities and colleges invited him to speak on campus. These schools included Harvard University, Columbia University, Princeton University, University of Chicago, University of Californa, University of Michigan, and the University of Rome. It is also noteworthy to mention that it was Sterling's idea to launch the prestigious Obert C. Tanner Lectures on Human Values which was initiated in 1978.

A significant part of Professor McMurrin's personal legacy revolves around the role which he played in discussing publicly and frequently his views on the rights of Black men to become members of the LDS church's priesthood. A member of the N.A.A.C.P., Sterling became an effective and vigorous advocate of the rights of Black people in LDS society. In 1960 and in 1968, he spoke before the Salt Lake City chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. These addresses were entitled "The Mormon Doctrine and the Negro" and "The Negroes among the Mormons." The public's response to these speeches was both congratulatory and condemnatory, with the vast majority endorsing McMurrin's views. The most negative reaction to Sterling's views occurred in 1960 when a member of the LDS church, who attended the 1960 lecture, asked Joseph Fielding Smith why Sterling had not been excommunicated from the church. When President Spencer W. Kimball announced in 1978 that Black men would be permitted to enter the LDS priesthood, McMurrin wrote to members of the First Presidency expressing his heartfelt gratitude for the pronouncenment and asserted that this action represented "the most important event in the history of the Church since its founding." This material is located in boxes 220 and 291.

Sterling Moss McMurrin died on 6 April 1996 in St. George, Utah.

(Biographical sketch composed by Roger Paxton.)