Mississippi State University - Reveille Yearbook (Starkville, MS)

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up came: a wholesale firing of A. M. faculty mem- bers. Forthwith, on September 1, 1931, A. M. and three other state senior institutions were suspended from the Southern Association. Restoration of membership did not come until the next governor, Mike S. Conner, secured reinstatement; but A. M. was left on probation until salaries and academic standards were improved. Full restoration came in December, 1934. Meanwhile, the state, which was suffering from a national depression, was in dire financial straits. A. M. fees had to be increased, even though Critz boasted that a boy with simple tastes could get along on $400 a year, thanks to such consider- ations as free dormitory rooms! All was not bleak in the early thirties. In November, 1930, the School of Business was revived under J. V. Bowen, and in the next year it absorbed the Academic School. It was also in 1930 that the college abandoned 17

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S. D. Lee stately remains the same as people. heritage . . . 16 tion. In 1920, the liberal arts including mathematics were organized as the Academic School, and the sci- ences were left in the School of Science. Meanwhile, there were valiant efforts to improve educational qual- ity. These resulted in admission to membership in the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools in 1926. It was to be out again in again with the Southe Association. In 1928 Theodore Bilbo returned as gove nor and two years later his purge of college administr tors and faculty was unleashed. At A. M., Hugh Cri who had taught at the college in the mid-twenties, w picked to replace Walker at a board meeting aft which Bilbo boasted, We ' ve bounced three colle presidents and made three new ones in the record tir of two hours. And, that ' s just the beginning . . . Ci himself was shocked and paralyzed when the folio

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heritage . . . President Humphrey its policy of requiring military uniforms to be worn on campus, and in the same year the board formally approved the restoration of the skirt — for girls, that is. The college was again coeducational! The time was now ripe for an updating of the college name; so on Febru- ary 3, 1932, old A. M. became Mississippi State Col- lege. Naturally, Mississippi State ' s rising fortunes created some consternation elsewhere in state higher educa- tional circles. There were, of course, crises over duplica- tion and a shaking of the Southern Association finger over a needed upgrading of standards. The result was a study of the state-supported senior institutions by a group of consultants from Peabody College. A report in 1933 recommended the abolition of the business and science schools at State and the engineering school at Ole Miss. That did it. In a sort of common cause, the two great rivals for the moment buried their swords somewhere other than in each other; and the board stood pat. In 1934 Critz resigned and George Duke Humphrey, state high school supervisor, was chosen president over Vice President A. B. Butts, who lost by a single vote. Butts forthwith went to Ole Miss as chancellor the next year. Humphrey was to inaugurate a period of rapid growth at Mississippi State. A graduate school was set up under Herbert Drennon. Also, the Education School was revived; and in World War II a School of Aviation and Aeronautical Engineering was authorized, but it was finally activated only as a department in Engineer- ing. In this same period instruction in forestry was inaugurated. The summer session which had collapsed in 1928, was restored. Research stations for both Busi- ness and Engineering were created. Also, a department of adult education and community service was set up as part of a new off-campus academic orientation. World War II brought rapid academic retrenchment as the student body again went off to war. However, with war ' s end in 1945 the returning veterans brought an enrollment boom. At the same time. Dr. Humphrey, lured by a tempting offer of the presidency of the Uni- versity of Wyoming, left in June, 1945. Experiment Sta- tion Director Clarence Dorman served as acting presi- dent until the election of a new president. Dr. Mitchell. Fred T. Mitchell, a graduate of the college who later professed he had wasted time in debate, dramatics, and various athletic endeavors, came to Mississippi State from Michigan State, where he had been Dean of Recruits for World War II. 18