History of Georgia Tech/to Do - Technological University

Technological University

Includes the administration of Marion L. Brittain (1922–1944)

On August 1, 1922, Marion L. Brittain was elected as the school's president. He noted in the 1923 annual report that "there are more students in Georgia Tech than in any other two colleges in Georgia, and we have the smallest appropriation of them all." He was able to convince the state of Georgia to increase the school's funding during his tenure. Additionally, a $300,000 grant ($4,173,700 today) from the Guggenheim Foundation allowed Brittain to establish the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aeronautics. In 1930, Brittain's decision to use the money for a school of aeronautics was controversial; today, the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering boasts the second largest faculty in the United States behind MIT. Other accomplishments during Brittain's administration included a doubling of Georgia Tech's enrollment, accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and the creation of a new ceramic engineering department, building, and major that attracted the American Ceramics Society's national convention to Atlanta.

In 1929, some Georgia Tech faculty members belonging to Sigma Xi started a research club that met once a month at Tech. One of the monthly subjects, proposed by ceramic engineering professor W. Harry Vaughan, was a collection of issues related to Tech, such as library development, and the development of a state engineering station. Such a station would theoretically assist local businesses with engineering problems via Georgia Tech's established faculty and resources. This group investigated the forty existing engineering experiments at universities around the country, and the report was compiled by Harold Bunger, Montgomery Knight, and Vaughan in December 1929.

The Great Depression threatened the already tentative nature of Georgia Tech's funding. In a speech on April 27, 1930, Brittain proposed that the university system be reorganized under a central body, rather than having each university under its own board. As a result, the Georgia General Assembly and Governor Richard Russell, Jr. passed an act in 1931 that established the University System of Georgia and the corresponding Georgia Board of Regents; unfortunately for Brittain and Georgia Tech, the board was composed almost entirely of graduates of the University of Georgia. In its final act on January 7, 1932, the Tech Board of Trustees sent a letter to the chairman of the Georgia Board of Regents outlining its priorities for the school. The Depression also affected enrollment, which dropped from 3,271 in 1931–1932 to a low of 2,482 in 1933–1934, and only gradually increased afterwards. It also caused a decrease in funding from the State of Georgia, which in turn caused a decrease in faculty salaries, firing of graduate student assistants, and a postponing of building renovations.

As a cost-saving move, effective on July 1, 1934, the Georgia Board of Regents transferred control of the relatively large Evening School of Commerce to the University of Georgia and moved the small civil engineering program at UGA to Tech. The move was controversial, and both students and faculty protested against it, fearing that the Board of Regents would remove other programs from Georgia Tech and reduce it to an engineering department of the University of Georgia. Brittain suggested that the lack of Georgia Tech alumni on the Board of Regents contributed to their decision. Despite the pressure, the Board of Regents held its ground. The Depression also had a significant impact on the athletic program, as most athletes were in the commerce school, and resulted in the elimination of athletic scholarships, which were replaced by a loan program. Plans for an industrial management department to replace and supersede the Evening School of Commerce were first made in fall 1934. The department was established in 1935, and evolved into Tech's College of Management. The commerce school eventually split from UGA and became Georgia State University.

In 1933, S. V. Sanford, president of the University of Georgia, proposed that a "technical research activity" be established at Tech. Brittain and Dean William Vernon Skiles examined the Research Club's 1929 report, and moved to create such an organization. W. Harry Vaughan was selected as its acting director in April 1934, and $5,000 in funds were allocated directly from the Georgia Board of Regents. These funds went to the previously established Engineering Experiment Station (EES); its initial areas of focus were textiles, ceramics, and helicopter engineering. Georgia Tech's EES later became the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI).

The EES's early work was conducted in the basement of the Shop Building, and Vaughan's office was in the Aeronautical Engineering Building. By 1938, the EES was producing useful technology, and the station needed a method to conduct contract work outside of the state budget. Consequently, the Industrial Development Council (IDC) was formed. It was created by the Chancellor of the University System and the president of Georgia Power Company, and the EES's director was a member of the council. The IDC later became the Georgia Tech Research Corporation, which currently serves as the sole contract organization for all Georgia Tech faculty and departments.

In 1939, EES director Vaughan became the director of the School of Ceramic Engineering. He was the director of the station until 1940, when he accepted a higher-paying job at the Tennessee Valley Authority and was replaced by Harold Bunger (the first chairman of Georgia Tech's chemical engineering department). When the ceramics department was temporarily discontinued due to World War II, the current students found wartime employment. The department would be reincarnated after the war under the guidance of Lane Mitchell.

The Cocking affair occurred in 1941 and 1942 when Georgia governor Eugene Talmadge exerted direct control over the state's educational system, particularly through the firing of University of Georgia professor Walter Cocking, who had been hired to raise the relatively low academic standards at UGA's College of Education. Talmadge justified his actions by asserting that Cocking intended to integrate a part of the University of Georgia. Cocking's removal and the subsequent removal of members of the Georgia Board of Regents (including the vice chancellor) who disagreed with the decision were particularly controversial. In response to the actions of Governor Talmadge, the Southern Association of Independent Schools withdrew accreditation from all Georgia state-supported colleges for whites, including Georgia Tech. The controversy was instrumental in Talmadge's loss in the 1943 gubernatorial elections to Ellis Arnall.

World War II resulted in a dramatic increase of sponsored research, with the 1943–1944 budget being the first in which industry and government contracts exceeded the EES's other income (most notably, its state appropriation). Vaughan had initially prepared the faculty for fewer incoming contracts as the state had cut the station's appropriation by 40 percent, but increased support from industry and government eventually counteracted low state support. The electronics and communications research that Directors Gerald Rosselot and James E. Boyd attracted is still a mainstay of GTRI research. Two of the larger projects were a study on the propagation of electromagnetic waves, and United States Navy-sponsored radar research.

Until the mid 1940s, the school required students to be able to create a simple electric motor regardless of their major. During World War II, as an engineering school with strong military ties through its ROTC program, Georgia Tech was swiftly enlisted for the war effort. In early 1942 the traditional nine-month semester system was replaced by a year-round trimester year, enabling students to complete their degrees a year earlier. Under the plan, students were allowed to complete their engineering degrees while on active duty. During World War II, Georgia Tech was one of 131 colleges and universities that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission. The school was also one of only five U.S. colleges feeding into the United States Naval Academy.