Lloyd Morrisett
| Lloyd Morrisett | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
Lloyd Newton Morrisett, Jr. November 2, 1929 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma |
| Nationality | USA |
| Education | B.A. Oberlin College (Philosophy, 1951) Ph.D. Yale University (Experimental Psychology) |
| Alma mater | Oberlin College |
| Occupation | experimental psychologist, educator, philanthropist |
| Known for | experimental psychologist and founder of the Children's Television Workshop which created Sesame Street |
Lloyd Newton Morrisett, Jr. (born November 2, 1929) is an American experimental psychologist with a career in education, communications, and philanthropy. He is one of the founders of the Sesame Workshop, the organization famous for the creation of the children's television shows Sesame Street which was also co-created by him, The Electric Company, and many others.
He is married to Mary Pierre Morrisett. They have two children — Sarah Elizabeth Otley and Julie Margaret Morrisett.
Morrisett was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the son of Jessie Watson and Lloyd Newton Morrisett. The family moved to New York City in 1933 to escape the hardships brought about by the Dust Bowl and the Depression. After the Great Depression, the family moved to California, where Morrisett met Julian Ganz, a middle school classmate who would later introduce him to Joan Ganz Cooney, the co-founder of Children's Television Workshop.
Morrisett assumed he was headed for a life of academia like his father, a professor at UCLA. “I was brought up to believe that being a professor was the best job in the world,” he said. Today, he credits his father with inspiring his lifelong interest in education.
Morrisett attended Oberlin College and received his BA in philosophy in 1951. Originally, he had wanted to become a chemist, but after taking a fascinating course in his junior year, he realized he wanted to study experimental psychology. He became an Oberlin College trustee and was Chairman of the Board from 1975 to 1981.
He did graduate work in psychology for two years at UCLA, where he met an assistant professor named Irving Maltzman — whom he describes as “very important, very influential in psychology.” Morrisett became Maltzman’s research assistant, and together, they co-authored six papers and studies.
Inspired by Maltzman, whose area was human learning, creativity and human thinking, Morrisett attended Yale in 1953 for three years and earned a Ph.D in experimental psychology. There, he met and apprenticed with Carl I. Hovland, a leading psychologist who founded the Yale Communications and Attitude Change program. In later years, Morrisett would credit that apprenticeship with sparking his interest in communications.
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