According to “The J-School: Celebrating One Hundred Years in Journalism and the Reynolds Journalism Institute Dedication,” the stone lions once guarded a Confucian temple in Nanjing, China, and were gifts to the school in 1931. Walter Williams, founder and dean of the school, accepted the lions as a symbol of the close relationship between the Missouri School of Journalism and the Chinese government. According to Brooks, the lions and other gifts at the school symbolize the importance of international relations to Williams.
When Williams first established the Missouri School of Journalism in 1908, he wanted it to be represented on the world stage. He helped build the first Chinese journalism school at St. John University in Shanghai in 1928. For many years afterward, he sent scholars from the Missouri School of Journalism to teach at Chinese universities. There were two Chinese students in the first class of the school in 1908.

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