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Fresh out of high school in 1986, ANNA M. MORRIS (Political Science ’90) was eager to get to the University of Florida. Even at a young age, she was drawn to the school’s international perspective, which matched her big ambitions to make a global impact. Not wasting any time, she enrolled in courses over the summer.

“I knew by attending UF I was going to be learning from not just the best the United States had to offer, but that the world had to offer,” she said.

Morris would later leverage those opportunities into a 30-year active- duty career in the Air Force, where she reached the rank of Colonel. She is now the Director of Contracting at Hanscom Air Force Base, where she oversees more than $4 billion in annual contract obligations supporting more than 300 programs. With the move, she joins the Senior Executive Service (SES), a corps of civil service leaders in the United States federal government just below the top presidential appointees. Morris is the first Black female member of the SES in Air Force Contracting since the community’s inception in 1947.

But that first summer at UF, the transition to college initially proved to be an unexpected challenge: Accustomed to excelling in high school, Morris was shocked to find a mediocre grade on her first exam. With encouragement from her mother, she decided to set up a time to talk with the professor about how she could improve.

The conversation did not go as planned. The professor, Morris recalls, began lecturing her about the history of the University of Florida. His rant confused her at first, but Morris soon caught onto the point he was heading toward.

“Young lady, you don’t belong here,” he said. “Go home and have yourself some babies. That’s what you people do.”

Holding her composure, Morris thanked the professor for his time and quickly left his office. She rushed back to her dorm room, determined not to let anyone see her cry. By the time she dialed her mother’s number, though, tears were streaming down her face. Her mother first instructed her to find a peer who could help her study. But what her mother said next has stuck with Morris the most: “She said, ‘Pay him no mind,’” Morris recalls.

That’s exactly what Morris did — and continued to do throughout her time at UF and career. “Any time I’ve encountered someone else like that in my life — who felt I didn’t belong somewhere because of who I am or what I look like — I’ve paid them no mind,” she said.

Ignoring the skeptics, though, has not meant overlooking the adversity that racism and sexism present. This year, Morris established an endowment through the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to support diversity, equity and inclusion, including scholarships for students actively working to break down barriers to success for minorities. She hopes to build a community of successful students and alumni supporting the next generation.

“Success doesn’t end with you getting to the pinnacle of your career,” she said. “Your goal from day one should be mentoring and developing those who are coming behind you. True leaders make more leaders, not more followers. I’m so grateful that the college was willing to partner with me in establishing this endowment, because it will be the gift that keeps on giving.”

For Morris, support came early from her grandmother, Jannie Bagley Jacobs, and her mother, Jeanette H. Jacobs, who shared their experiences with the oppression of Jim Crow and the hard-fought wins of the Civil Rights Movement. She found further encouragement from UF’s Upward Bound program, whose longtime director, G.W. MINGO, was an early mentor.

At UF, courses in African American studies, women’s studies and constitutional law helped to shape Morris’ perception of herself as an American. The late RONALD C. FOREMAN, her African American Studies professor and the program’s director from 1970 to 2000, was instrumental in Morris’ continued pursuit of academic excellence and appreciation for cultural diversity.

“All those things coupled together, I believe, led to my success as someone who has been able to achieve based on the sacrifices of those who came before me,” she said.

Many of her goals centered around the military. She broke with her father and brother’s Army precedent by joining the Air Force ROTC at UF. There, she found an additional source of support, newfound structure and principles of leadership, integrity and service.

Throughout her military career from early recruitment positions at colleges to deployment in Iraq Morris drew upon the skills she developed at UF to address logistical challenges and navigate complex political situations. Perhaps just as meaningfully, she always savored the opportunity to inspire young people from diverse backgrounds to pursue ambitious paths. Many of them, Morris finds, at first assume that because of her high-ranking position, she must not have faced the same challenges they do. It’s essential, she realized, to share her story and impart how obstacles can be overcome when dedication is matched by support and encouragement from the community, family, and mentors.

More than three decades after her unfortunate meeting with that UF professor, Morris has gone from “not belonging here” to her place among the top ranks of civil service — and a proud UF graduate who waves the Gator banner wherever she goes.

“We have a responsibility to help people, not just meet us where we are,” she said, “but to help them understand how we got there.”

This story appears in the fall 2022 issue of Ytori magazine. Read more from the issue.