Kenneth R. Williams

1944-1946

Kenneth R. Williams became Dean of Education in September 1944. He had been an instructors and critic teacher at Florida State College of Women from 1930-36. He did graduate work at the University of Chicago in 1937-38 and Dean Walter Cocking brought him to the College as an assistant professor of education in 1938.

In 1940, Williams was made associate professor and Dean of Students of the university. He then went to the University of Florida where he became professor of school administration and director of War Training Courses. In June 1944, just returning as Dean of Education at UGA, Williams received his Ph.D. in educational administration from the University of Chicago.

The Summer Workshops were still in high demand, but due to gas rationing and other wartime restrictions it was difficult for some to travel to Athens. To ease the problems, College of Education personnel traveled to various locations around the state to conduct these workshops. More than 300 teachers and administrators were enrolled in workshops in Americus, Demorest, Aragon, Dalton, Hiawassee, Summerville and Waleska in the summer of 1945.

In 1946, the College had undergraduate programs for elementary and secondary teachers of English, history, science, mathematics, languages, etc. It also trained personnel such as teachers of secondary school agriculture and secondary school home economics, public school art teachers, music teachers, industrial arts teachers and health and physical education teachers.

At the graduate level, the College trained people to be county and independent school system superintendents, principals, instructional supervisors and master teachers.

Dean Williams urged for undergraduate programs to be set up to train nursery school and kindergarten teachers, distributive education teachers, and trade and industrial teachers. At the graduate level, the Dean called for program to train counselors and visiting teachers, but these were deemed to be insufficient.

The College was essentially housed in three buildings in 1946. The Demonstration School was on the Co-ordinate Campus, remaining displaced by the Navy Pre-Flight School. Peabody Hall was extremely cramped since, in addition to its normal functions, it housed the Education Panel of the Georgia Agricultural and Industrial Development Board, some of the Department of Physical Education for Women, and the Industrial Arts Department. The Navy returned the Women’s Physical Education Building to the College, however, the building required considerable reconditioning.

The Atlanta Area Teacher Education Services (AATES), one of the most unusual ventures the College had undertaken up to that time, began in 1945. The program, jointly sponsored by Emory University and UGA, was an effort to pool resources of the two institutions to provide more effective teacher education in the Atlanta metro area.

In the fall of 1945, nine different courses were offered with some courses being offered in three different locations in the Atlanta area. Total enrollment during its first year of operation was 968 with an average class size of 20.

In the next few years, the program would lead to a statewide cooperative effort in which different institutions pooled their resources. Students in these programs could take their credit from whichever participating institution they choose.

Williams resigned as Dean in 1946 to take a position with the Army Air Force School in Montgomery, Ala. President Harmon Caldwell announced the new Dean to be Omer Clyde Aderhold.