Mississippi State University - Reveille Yearbook (Starkville, MS)

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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

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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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Cheerleaders show spirit in this picture from a page in the 1958 REVEILLE. Men, a position created for him there. His career at Mississippi State was a creative one. It was Mitchell who saw the institution through its postwar boom of veteran enrollment in which the total rose from 431 in 1943 to 3819 in 1948. Women were responsible for some of this growth, for at last the college managed to provide dormitories for women - by converting some men ' s housing. Academic standards were improved. The graduate school more than tripled in size, and the first doctoral degree was awarded in 1953. In 1949 all engineering departments were given full accreditation. A spacious new library building was completed and later named for Dr. Mitchell. Accreditation by the American Chem- ical Society (its only one in Mississippi) was given to the chemistry department, whose building-up was the life- long task of Professor and State Chemist, Dr. William Flowers Hand, who also served as dean of the School of Science and vice president. When ill health forced Mitchell to retire in 1953, the Board chose as president Ben F. Hilbun, who had served many years as registrar until he was made administra- tive assistant under Mitchell. In the same year, the A freshman tradition that is no longer with us. ]9