Augusta College - White Columns Yearbook (Augusta, GA)

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For some time the Academy had needed a new, larger building. Law- ton B. Evans realized that a new building was needed, and also a new building would easily house a new college program. In order to add a second year of college without extra cost to the taxpayers, the twelve grades of public schooling were reduced to eleven. The trustees donated $ 1 00,000; the voters of the county passed a $300,000 bond sale, and the city donated 22 acres of land for the new building. George Butler visited the Columbia Teacher ' s College in New York and came back advocating a co-ed institu- tion that would cost the taxpayers nothing by closing the fifth year at Tubman, a girl ' s school, and the fifth year at the Academy. Tuition was to be $ 1 00 per year, the poor to get scholarships from civic groups. The spark had been ignited which wo uld result in the Junior College of Augusta. After the city had spent $ 1 2,000 to drain the swamp on Baker Avenue, The Board of Education, on August 1 5, voted to establish the Junior Col- lege of Augusta as long as it could be housed in the Academy. There were so many ties to the Academy that it is wrong to look upon the action of August 1 5 as the launching of a new institution. Rather than a birthday, the ocassion was a coming-of-age. Butler became the college ' s first pres- ident. President Butler appointed J.L. Skin- ner as Dean and Miss Julia Flisch, of the Tubman faculty, as Advisor to Women and Professor of History. The Augusta Training School was incor- porated into the college, and became the department of Education and Teacher Training; Katherine Boggs, director of the former school became chairman of the new department. Butler also established the first ROTC unit, elect- ing Major A.G. Goodwyn as com- mandant, and appointed eleven teach- ers from the Academy faculty to teach on both college and secondary levels.

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The Junior College of Augusta was accredited in December of 1926. The far-sighted Butler resigned on May 1 0, 1 930 and died three years later. James Lester Skinner became the second President of the Junior College of Augusta on May 17, 1930. During his eight years ' tenure the Junior College remained almost static, primairly because the Great De- pression gripped the country. The faculty increased from nine to ten, the student enrollment from 200 to 250, but the tuition stayed at $100. Skinner was a method- ical and efficient administrator. Eric Hardy, Skinner ' s choice for Dean, was a colorful man. Hardy ' s language was strongly peppered, whereas Skinner had a Sunday School propriety. Pres- ident Skinner was more con- cerned with the overall function- ing of the school than about what the students were learning in the classrooms. The year of 1931 saw the estab- lishment of the Board of Regents. The University System was being reorganized to save money. It was in the spring of that year that the Richmond County Board of Education attempted to solicit funds from the state. They were informed that they could expect no help. In fact, salaries for col- lege teachers were being cut from $2,700 per year to $2,500. In 1932, salaries were cut again. Operating costs of the Junior Col- lege fell from $14,857 in 1931 to $8,596 in 1932 and to $4,624 in 1933. Also cut was the new col- lege football and basketball teams. In a town as sports- minded as Augusta, this was a sure sign that the school was suffering from the decline in the economy.