Jesse Lee Cuninggim was born on March 21, 1870 at Lenoir Institute, Green County, North Carolina. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating with a BA degree in 1891, and Vanderbilt University where he received his BD in 1895. He did graduate work for four years at the University of Chicago.

He was a professor in the Biblical Department at Vanderbilt from 1902 – 1915, directing the Correspondence School of the Methodist Church, South (c 1902-1909) and Ministerial Supply and Training (1910-1914). From 1915-1917, he was the pastor of the First Methodist Church at Elizabeth City, NC and was a presiding elder of the Durham, NC conference district. He was a professor of Religious Education at Southern Methodist University in Dallas from 1917-1921.

He moved to the Scarritt Bible and Training Institute in 1921, “with a view to remove it from Kansas City and enlarge its educational mission.” The school moved to Nashville in 1924 and became known as Scarritt College for Christian Workers. Dr. Cuninggim was its first president, responsible for literally building the institution (procuring the property in Nashville and beginning a campaign to support the development of new buildings including the Belle Harris Bennett complex and later Gibson Hall. Under his leadership, Scarritt moved from being a bible training institute to a fully accredited endowed senior college and graduate school.

Dr. Cuninggim served as President of Scarritt from 1924-1943. He wrote several books, most notably The Family of God, published following his retirement in 1948 (Nashville: Parthenon Press) which contains his philosophy of education. He was careful to document to process of founding Scarritt and many of the papers in this collection reflect his dedication to writing not just a history of Scarritt College, but writing about the process of founding a school for religious education. His history of Scarritt College was published after his death in 1950.

He was responsible for introducing the Joint University Center complex, working with the presidents of Vanderbilt and Peabody. With the presidents of Vanderbilt and Peabody, he was instrumental in founding a joint school of graduate social work, which later became the UT School of Social Work. Vanderbilt Alumni magazine (c1950) described JLC as building a “chapel-size college with a cathedral proportioned dream.”

He was married to Maud Merrimon in June of 1910. Their two children are Dr. Merrimon Cuninggim, a Rhodes Scholar and Chairman of the Department of Religion at Pomona College, and Margaret Louise Cuninggim, former Dean at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Cuninggim retired from the presidency of Scarritt in 1943 and was named President Emeritus. He died at St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville on November 25, 1950 at the age of 80.