When it was founded in 1785, with the original charter written by Abraham Baldwin – one of the signers of U.S. Constitution, the University of Georgia existed mostly on paper. It would take some sixteen years to get some land but by 1804 it had its first graduating class of nine. All men. It would take a little more than a hundred years to get beyond that part.
In 1889, a group from the Daughters of the American Revolution and Colonial Dames appealed to the university’s Board of Trustees for the admission of women. They were apparently not convinced. A vote was finally held in 1897 but the proposal lost 8-5. The situation was caught up in the image of women at the time and as UGA Chancellor David C. Barrow explained at the time, “The gentlemen who opposed coeducation did so under the impression that women were too good for the university, rather than that the university was too good for women.”
World War I was partially to thank for the ultimate admission of women. With men joining the Army ahead of the Great War, a shortage of trained nutritionists, extension workers and teachers meant that the Board of Trustees had little choice but to allow women. Twelve women enrolled in 1918, all in the home economics program, now the College of Family and Consumer Sciences.
The Peabody School of Education, now the College of Education, accepted female students the following year and all programs were opened to women soon thereafter. The first women’s dormitory, Soule Hall, was built in 1920. It was named after Andrew Soule, the president of the Georgia State College of Agriculture, who had been an advocate for the admission of women and helped create the home economics program.
By 1925, Edith House was the first woman to graduate from the UGA School of Law. Some 30 years later, Charlayne Hunter-Gault was first black woman admitted and Mary Frances Early was the first black woman to earn a degree the following year.
The celebration of woman at UGA comes amid news that the university recently improved three spots and is now ranked the 13th best public school in the country by U.S. News and World Report. The average GPA for an incoming freshman this year was 4.04, with an average SAT score of 1365. UGA joins Georgia Tech in the top 15 and the state of Georgia is one of only three states – with California and Virginia – to have more than one school in the top 15.
“The University of Georgia is reaching new heights of excellence in virtually every measure, and I am pleased that national recognition of the quality of our academic programs is on the rise,” said UGA President Jere W. Morehead. “I want to commend our faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends for their hard work and dedication in making the University of Georgia, the birthplace of public higher education in America, one of the very best public universities in the nation.”
To read more about UGA celebrating 100 years of women, see here
