Former board chair donates to create Sondra and Dorsey Ellis Center for Faculty and Student Excellence
Dec. 16, 2025
Long before he became a scholar of national standing — a dean, a professor emeritus, a voice shaping generations of legal thinkers — Dorsey “Dan” Ellis, Jr. ’60 was simply a young man at Maryville College, learning to see the world with clarity and purpose.
Here, in classrooms where ideas took root and in friendships that deepened into love, Ellis found the beginnings of a life that would carry him to the University of Chicago Law School, to New York’s Cravath, Swaine & Moore, and to a distinguished career in teaching and academic leadership.
Through every accomplishment, he has held fast to a single truth: that the most enduring gifts of his life were planted at Maryville. In gratitude for those beginnings — and the lifelong affinity he and his late wife, Sondra Wagner Ellis ’60, had for Maryville — Ellis has made a $750,000 gift to establish the Sondra and Dorsey Ellis Center for Faculty and Student Excellence at Maryville College, a new home for the mentorship and discovery that shaped them both.
“The idea came from Maryville. President (Bryan) Coker suggested a lot of possibilities, and this one struck me as being specific enough to have some bones on it,” Ellis said. “It seems to be consistent with the Maryville College vision and the educational benefit I received from Maryville, which provided a structure that led me to succeed in subsequent endeavors.”
A collaborative approach to developmental learning
Although details are still being worked out, the goal of the Ellis Center for Faculty and Student Excellence will be to foster “a vibrant, supportive academic community, emphasizing the College’s commitment to lifelong learning” that will “serve as a hub for both faculty and student growth, providing comprehensive resources to enhance both teaching and learning,” according to the center’s statement of purpose.
The Ellises have long supported professional development by Maryville College faculty members, an interest that began with Dan’s time as an undergraduate working under Dr. Arda S. Walker ’40, chair of the History Department and a history professor whom Ellis came to view as his mentor.
“She was also the coach for the debate team, which I participated in, so I got a lot of educational benefits out of the debate program she was running,” Ellis said. “I got the idea that we ought to have an opportunity for students to talk about current events, and she and Dr. Carolyn Blair (former professor of English and academic dean at MC) supported my thoughts, and we started having a student-run seminar once a month or so about current events.
“So I got support from the faculty early on, because it wasn’t a project for credit or anything; it was just a way for students to discuss current events. What I hope the faculty members who take advantage of what the Ellis Center has to offer do is to follow in their footsteps by mentoring students and confronting the issues of the time.”
For faculty members, the center will offer professional development opportunities and programming in areas such as AI-supported, research-based teaching; curricular innovation; and leadership development. The center will support faculty development at all stages, from new faculty to mid-career faculty to those nearing retirement, and Ellis was insistent that money for the center be set aside for travel expenses.
“I wanted to include funds for travel so that faculty can broaden their own perspectives by going to conferences and workshops, and so they can contribute to their colleagues in other schools,” he said. “I think Maryville College has a lot to give based on its own experience and what’s happened over the years in terms of faculty development.”
Faculty members who take advantage, Ellis pointed out, will ideally return to MC with enthusiastic new ideas that trickle down in ways that benefit students. Walker’s support of his seminar idea is one such example, he added.
“She thought it was a good idea, and she actually spent a lot of time and effort helping me and others get the idea moving, as if it were a seminar for academic credit,” he said.
For students, the center will offer a variety of options to support academic success, including tutoring, supplemental instruction, group study and academic success programming. The goal will be to equip every student with the tools, strategies and confidence they need to thrive both in and out of class, according to initial plans for the center.
For Dr. Maria Siopsis, professor of mathematics and faculty chair, the gift is an overwhelming one, given the length she and many of her colleagues go to every semester to elevate the educational experiences of Maryville College undergraduates beyond the typical college experience.
“I am deeply thankful for this gift from the Ellis family, because it recognizes the essential role of the faculty — experts in their fields who are committed to undergraduate teaching excellence,” Siopsis said. “This support provides the resources faculty need to continue innovating in their disciplines and in the classroom, and its impact has the potential to be truly transformative for the institution.”
A history of doing good and giving back
And, in turn, those faculty members will transform the Scots who seek a degree in this place. After all, they certainly did for the Ellises.
After earning his doctorate of jurisprudence from the University of Chicago in 1963, Dan practiced law with Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City for five years before entering the educational side of law. He was a law faculty member at the University of Iowa, eventually becoming a vice president of the university. In 1987, he became dean of Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, a position he held until 1998, when he was appointed the William R. Orthwein Distinguished Professor of Law. Today he is dean emeritus. In retirement, he served on the Maryville College Board of Directors for more than two decades, including eight years as chair.
Sondra was a Biology major who was awarded a fellowship to Vassar College, where she earned a master’s degree in 1962. She worked in research at Argonne National Laboratory at the University of Chicago and then Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital in Brooklyn, New York. Somewhere among their prestigious accomplishments, they found time to raise a family: Laura and Geoffrey, two accomplished members of the Ellis family in their own right.
Their success is a measure of the values instilled in them by their parents, who in turn received them through the faculty members who taught them and the experiences that changed them all those years ago, on the campus of the College that still holds a special place in Dan’s heart.
“There was something about that class (of 1960), and the faculty members who gave us an education,” Ellis said. “In a way, we felt obligated to show them that we were going to do something with what they taught us, and the way they mentored us. Sondra and I enjoyed our classes, but it wasn’t just the classes.
“I could go into a faculty member’s office any time and have a good discussion about matters that might pertain to the College. Looking back, the College was ahead of its time, and the experiences we had there allowed both Sondra and myself to reach a point where we feel like it’s important that we give back.”