[1][2] When he was 21 years old he worked as a manager for a mercantile company before entering the teaching profession as a teacher in Smithfield, Utah.

[1] Raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) during the time when plural marriage (polygamy) was taught and practiced, Kerr later married a second wife, Lois Cordelia Morehead, a schoolteacher in Smithfield, Utah and they had two children, a son and a daughter.

[1] Kerr began his academic career in 1887 when he joined the faculty of Brigham Young University as a mathematics professor.

[1] When he was considered for president of the university in 1907, the public animosity for Mormonism invited attacks on Kerr's polygamous past, until he reasserted his rejection of the faith.

[1] Kerr left OSU in 1932 when he became the first chancellor of the Oregon State System of Higher Education serving in that position until 1935.