Marion L. Brittain - President of Georgia Tech

President of Georgia Tech

On August 1, 1922, Brittain was elected president of the Georgia School of Technology (Georgia Tech). During his tenure, Brittain was able to convince the state of Georgia to increase funding for the Institute. He had noted in he 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." Additionally, a $300,000 grant ($4,173,705.18 today) from the Guggenheim Foundation allowed Brittain to establish the David Guggenheim School of Aeronautics at Georgia Tech. In 1930, Brittain's decision to use the money for a School of Aeronautics was controversial; today, the David 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, the first ROTC unit in the Southern United States, accreditation for the Institute by the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, and the creation of a new ceramic engineering department, building, and major that attracted the American Ceramics Society's national convention to Atlanta. Perhaps most significantly, Brittain is attributed with providing the vision and securing the finances to move Georgia Tech away from its roots as a teaching-oriented trade school and towards a new focus on science and technology research.

Brittain was known by reputation as a kind, gentle man and was well liked by students and faculty. He was especially remembered for his dedication to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team, attending nearly every game including those taking place out-of-state. Outside of Georgia Tech, Brittain taught Sunday school classes and maintained active membership in a number of service organizations. Brittain retired from his position as president of Georgia Tech in 1944, after which he penned a history of the Institute entitled The Story of Georgia Tech, completed in 1948. He died in 1953, survived by three children: McDonald, Marion Luther, Jr., and Ida, three grandsons, and a great-granddaughter. Flags at the university were flown at half-staff for a month in remembrance of Brittain, and classes were cancelled for the rest of the school week.