University of Georgia

The University of Georgia (UGA) is a university that is in and around Athens, Georgia. The university was created January 27, 1785 and was the first state university in the United States.^[1] However, it was not the first state university to hold classes or to graduate students. That honor belongs to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

About 34,000 students go to the school. The university's mascot is a bulldog named "Uga".

Diversity

Only white male students studied at UGA during the first century of its history. UGA began educating female students during the summer of 1903. Women were not admitted as full-time undergraduates until 1918.^[2] Before official admission of women to the university, several women were able to complete graduate degrees through credit earned during the summer sessions. The first woman to earn such a degree was Mary Lyndon. She received a Master of Arts degree in 1914. Mary Creswell earned the first undergraduate degree in June 1919, a B.S. in Home Economics. Two UGA dormitories are named after these graduates: Creswell Hall and Mary Lyndon Hall.

Racial integration started in 1961,^[3] with the admission of Hamilton E. Holmes and Charlayne Hunter after notable tension with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. In 2001, on the fortieth anniversary of their having first registered for classes, the university renamed a prominent campus building in their honor: Holmes-Hunter Academic Building.^[4] Although Hunter and Holmes were the first African-American students to matriculate at UGA, Mary Frances Early became the first African-American graduate by earning her master’s (MMEd) in music education in 1962. In 1963, Chester Davenport became the first African-American admitted to the UGA School of Law and its first African-American graduate (LL.B. 1966). A decade later, Sharon Tucker was the first female African-American law graduate, earning her J.D. in 1974.^[5]

References

1. On This Day in History
2. Chirhart, Ann Short (2005). Torches of Light: Georgia Teachers & the Coming of the Modern South. University of Georgia Press. p. 88. ISBN 978-0-8203-2669-6.
3. Proteus. Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. 1998. p. 51.
4. Dendy, Larry B. (November 27, 2000). "Registering historic steps: Academic Building to be named for Holmes and Hunter". Columns Faculty/Staff News. University of Georgia. Retrieved 2008-01-31.
5. "Campus News:Sibley lecturer Chester Davenport says Horace Ward was his inspiration". Georgia Magazine. 83 (3). University of Georgia. June 2004. Archived from the original on 2004-07-12. Retrieved 2008-05-25.