When Intelligence Specialist Master Chief Petty Officer Robert A. Morris II was 17 years old, he never would have imagined the titles that would one day precede his name, nor the two college degrees he would earn. This week, Morris will don the ceremonial robes of a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, master’s student and claim his hard-earned degree, a Master of Science in Communication and Information with a concentration in Strategic and Digital Communications.
Navigating Rough Waters
The East Tennessee native planned to graduate from McMinn County High School in 2005 and start technical school to follow in his father’s footsteps as an auto mechanic, but his father’s death that year threw the teenager into a funk. He was left without parents, his mother having passed away when he was just 7, and feeling aimless.
With the support of friends, family, and helpful advisors, Morris managed to earn his high school degree while living with his sister in Virginia—though circumstances didn’t allow for him to attend graduation and get his diploma in person.
Not long after reaching that milestone, he realized it was time to make a serious decision about the direction of his adult life. There wasn’t a precedence in his family of attending college and he hadn’t been studious in high school, so attending a four-year college didn’t even cross his mind. With his dad’s passing, he had also dropped the idea of attending technical school. Instead, he chose another route to establish a career by enlisting in the US Navy in July 2006.
“It’s come full circle for a kid who barely graduated high school, and now I’ve done what I’ve done,” Morris said.
That choice was exactly the right pathway for him as his military career is one marked with many accomplishments. He was assigned to work in intelligence after completing basic training and proved to be adept in that field, eventually achieving the top rank one can achieve as an enlisted service member. Since 2023, Morris has been working at the Pentagon, reporting to the Chief of Naval Operations Directorate for Information Warfare, where he serves as a requirements officer and the intelligence specialist senior rating advisor.
While his 19 years in the military have been filled with an array of assignments, overseas deployments, and successes, his life outside of work is just as fulfilling. In 2011 he married his high school sweetheart, Mishae, and together they have three children: Ariana (10), Camreigh (8), and Declan(6). While they did date in high school, Morris lightheartedly jokes that he broke his then-girlfriend’s heart by ending the relationship when he moved away from McMinn County, only for her to graciously “take him back” a few years later when they reconnected.
Achieving Academic Dreams
It was, in part, for his three children that he started college once he was assigned to a position in Florida overseeing intelligence training, which had a somewhat lighter workload than his previous jobs. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Strategic Studies and Defense Analysis from Norwich University in July 2022, though was unable to attend a graduation ceremony due to caution surrounding the still lingering COVID-19 pandemic.
Almost immediately after completing his undergraduate program and still riding that feeling of accomplishment, he applied to the online master’s program at the College of Communication and Information.
“Being an intel guy, you’re always learning. A lot of my focus early on was my career versus education; I was kind of perfecting my craft and what I was doing as an intelligence specialist and the contribution I needed to make at the time,” Morris said. “As I’ve gone up the ranks, it changes; it’s more of a leadership role rather than a technical role, so that helped me want to challenge myself with this, especially with the master’s. It was July 4th weekend in 2022 when I hit the button to apply and thought, ‘There goes my weekends and whatever else.’”
He had looked to Rocky Top in 2015 while researching online bachelor’s degrees, but UT’s online offerings at that time weren’t as robust as they are now, and none were well-suited to his needs or interests. So, when he began thinking about getting a master’s, he immediately began perusing UT’s online programs.
“I love Tennessee. I grew up a fan, we are season ticket holders, and we know we’ll eventually come back to Tennessee after I retire,” he said.
Though his selection was partially fueled by the orange in his blood, Morris also applied because of the breadth of the program’s curriculum and the flexibility of its asynchronous format. Courses such as Organizational Communication, Strategic Leadership, and Culture deepened skills he honed during his years serving as a military leader, whereas other courses, such as those in public relations, gave him a new perspective about how to communicate using a variety of approaches and methods.
“Digital content creation challenged me in a different way to use tools I didn’t even know existed. Another course taught Google Analytics, and it showed me that there were other tools out there that we could use in other ways,” he said.
While earning a higher education degree online comes with different challenges than attending classes in-person, Morris said he appreciated the amount of support he received from the program’s manager, Alexis Anderson, and the program’s student services coordinator, Johnny Roald. Both provided communication and resources to help guide his course selection and were accessible when he had questions.
Looking Towards New Horizons
In a small echo of the past, Morris took a year longer than anticipated to complete the master’s program due to his grandfather passing away. This time around he wasn’t an aimless teenager but rather a resilient leader, husband, and father—and he pressed on with all the grit his military years instilled in him.
This week, he’ll load his family up to take the eight-hour drive to Knoxville so he can finally participate in a graduation ceremony and proudly walk across the stage to officially become an alumnus of UT. After that, to celebrate both his academic achievement and his 14-year wedding anniversary, the family plans to fly to Fort Lauderdale to go on a cruise.
As for what’s next, Morris said he’s going to keep his options open. Retirement from the Navy will soon be an option after he serves 20 years, though that’s not a given. One of his reasons for getting a graduate degree was to expand his opportunities in the civilian world, with the underlying thought that someday he’d move back closer to home.
“I’m an intelligence guy , so there’s opportunities whether it’s Oak Ridge or DC…I’m not 100-percent sure when I want to get out of the military. I’ve heard both sides—some people just go on to do something completely unrelated to their active-duty job, there’s no more business with the government, they’re doing their own thing,” he said. “I could even work for UT, who knows, but there’s something on the civilian side that’s not military or intelligence that interests me. I do know that with a degree, especially a master’s, more doors are open.”