The Food Science Department is part of the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences and Division of Agriculture at the University of Arkansas. The department offers undergraduate, graduate, and certificate pathways designed to contribute to the advancement of knowledge, technologies, professional development, and economic success of individuals and food related enterprises. Although producing college graduates with training in scientific agriculture was one of the mandates of the Arkansas Industrial University when it was established in 1872 under terms of the Morrill Land-Grant College Act of 1862, few students - Page 3- University of Arkansas Food Science Department Records enrolled in the agriculture curriculum at first. In 1888, the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station was established by the Legislature to conduct research, with the help of federal funding under the Hatch Act of 1887. The experiment station made the public more aware of opportunities to study agriculture at the university and the benefits of scientific agriculture. Hugh Ellis Morrow was the first U of A graduate with a B.S. in Agriculture in 1904, and the College of Agriculture was established in 1905 with W.G. Vincenheller (already director of the experiment station) as the dean. The college was renamed College of Agriculture and Home Economics in 1954 and the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences in 1995.

Justin Roy Morris was a nationally known agriculturist, viticulturist and a faculty member at the University of Arkansas Agriculture Department under varying titles from 1964 until his retirement in 2009. Morris was born on February 20, 1937 in Howard County, AR and graduated from Nashville High School in 1954. He earned his B.S. Agriculture (1957) and M.S. Horticulture (1961) from the U of A and a Ph.D. Horticulture (1964) from Rutgers University. Morris began his work at the U of A as an Extension Horticulturist from 1964-1967 and after several promotions, he was given the title of Professor at the university in 1975. He went on to become a Distinguished Professor in the Food Science Department as well as Director of the Institute of Food Science and Engineering at the U of A System Division of Agriculture. Morris served as Executive Vice President of the Ozark Food Processors Association for over 30 years, was a Fellow of the American Society of Horticultural Sciences, a member of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture (ASEV) and received several food and wine industry awards throughout his lifetime. Additionally, he received awards for his research and teaching at the U of A such as the Spitze Land-Grant University Award for Excellence in 1997 and was inducted into the Arkansas Horticulture Hall of Fame in 2005. He published over 410 research and trade articles, two books, and contributed to several book chapters and presented papers at national and local organization meetings.

In collaboration with Arkansas farmer Tommy L. Oldridge (T.O.), Morris and Oldridge are credited with leading to the development of over 40 agricultural machines that replaced hand labor. Their main invention featured in this collection is the vMECH (Vineyard Mechanization) system (originally named the Morris-Oldridge Mechanization System) that eventually received a patent in 2002 and was bought by the OXBO International Corporation. Hank Ashby, manager of the French Camp Vineyards in San Luis Obispo, CA, was the first commercial user of the vMECH machine, which he utilized on his 1,400-acre vineyard in 2002 and conducted a series of tests until 2006; gathering harvest data and comparing the use of vMECH to hand pruning grapes, which proved vMECH's usefulness for improving efficiency for commercial vineyard operations. According to Ashby, vMECH enables producers to plan activities months ahead of time because of its risk management component. The Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce and the Arkansas Farm Bureau recognized Morris' contributions to the grape and wine industry by nominating him to the Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame in 2008. Justin R. Morris died on May 19th, 2014, at age 77.