MEIGS HALL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA

The Institute of Higher Education moved in the summer of 1999 to Meigs Hall, directly north of Candler Hall, the Institute's previous home.

Meigs Hall, a historic north campus building, has been renovated for its rededication as a teaching-learning facility with technologically advanced classrooms. In addition to Institute programs in graduate education and continuing professional education, the teaching-learning capabilities of Meigs Hall include professional seminars focusing on innovative teaching methods and technology, and undergraduate courses taught by master teachers in selected academic disciplines.

The history of any building is the story of the aspirations and activities of those who design and occupy it. From 1905 to 1999, three departments have occupied Meigs Hall—Biology, Psychology, and Germanic and Slavic Languages. As each developed and matured as departments, they outgrew the three-story brick structure. Having played a significant part in the evolution and progress of these disciplines at the university, Meigs Hall now houses the Institute of Higher Education as it continues its instruction, research, and service missions into the 21st century.

When the University of Georgia's Science Building burned down, two new buildings designed by university professor Charles M. Strahan replaced it in 1905. Strahan was an 1883 graduate of the UGA professional engineering program and head of the engineering school from 1890 to 1933. Terrell Hall was built on the site of the old building and was named after William Terrell, a benefactor in the 1850s to agricultural education. Combining excess funds from the construction of Terrell Hall with general university funds, Strahan designed a second, simpler building to house the biology department. Built on a site near the university's old tennis courts that were frequented by students and faculty alike, the new building officially opened on June 17, 1905. It was the only building solely dedicated to biological work in the South, and it was appropriately named after John and Joseph LeConte—two of the most prominent scientist-educators in Georgia's history. Both graduates of the university, John LeConte was professor of chemistry and natural philosophy from 1846 to 1855, and Joseph LeConte was professor of natural history from 1852 to 1856. Several LeConte family members attended the 1905 opening ceremony to hear an address by William H. Howell—biology professor and dean of the Johns Hopkins Medical College, noted scientist, and editor of one of the often used physiology textbooks of the day.

Leconte Hall (1905)

When designing LeConte Hall, Charles Strahan carefully considered the scientific purposes of the building. Concerned that the laboratories make maximum use of natural light, Strahan situated them within the building to avoid shadows from other buildings and trees, installed unusually large windows, and made the rooms sufficiently narrow for each work station and laboratory table to receive enough light to be "serviceable to the microscope." The large lecture room on the first floor was a "low amphitheater" whose basic design did not change until near the end of the twentieth century. The large windows ensured plenty of light in this room, as well, since as late as the 1960s, it was illuminated only by bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. The building housed laboratories of various types, dissection tables, sterilizers, incubators, a culture room, a biological museum, and a photographic darkroom—not to mention several offices and classrooms. One of the more interesting features was a greenhouse on the roof in which to grow plants and herbs for classroom use and experimentation.

Biology was first taught as part of natural history courses before the Civil War, and the allied fields of botany, zoology, and physiology were offered as part of the requirements for science and agriculture degrees in the 1870s. By 1888, Professor John P. Campbell established biology as its own department in the college of arts and sciences. Campbell—who remained at the university until 1918—and a graduate assistant moved into LeConte Hall shortly after it opened. They taught a large selection of courses in biology, botany, and zoology—required courses for all freshman, higher level courses for science majors, advanced courses for the new School of Pharmacy, and short courses in the sciences of agriculture, horticulture, and dairying for part-time (or in today's parlance, continuing) students. The biology department eventually hired additional faculty and divided into several departments of the biological sciences while in LeConte Hall. John M. Reade joined the faculty in 1908 as a botany professor, conducting classes on the top floor of the building as well as on weekly outings. By the 1920s, botany became its own department, Joseph Krafka joined the faculty as a professor of zoology, and an additional instructor specialized in genetics and physiology.

LeConte Hall housed biology, botany, and zoology instruction until 1937. A new biological sciences building was constructed as part of several major construction projects partially funded by the New Deal's Works Progress Administration. They included the transformation of Herty field into a parking lot, the construction of numerous new buildings, the remodeling of many others, and a complete landscaping of the university campus. When the science departments moved to the new biological sciences building, they took their old building's name with them. LeConte Hall was then renamed for another important scientist-educator in the university's history—Josiah Meigs.

A Yale graduate and mathematics professor, Josiah Meigs was the University of Georgia's first active president from 1800 to 1810. Given the responsibility for opening the university, he forged a course of study, shaped a system of laws for faculty and students, supervised construction, and served as the university's main recruiter. Once the doors of the university opened, he taught classes and was the principal administrative official for nearly a decade. A scientist when most American college presidents were ministers, Meigs was responsible for the scientific contents of the university curriculum and the purchase of equipment for demonstrations and experiments. Because he believed that the scientific outlook was necessary for political and religious freedom in the young country, he relished the chance to "kindle a scientific fire" among his students. His Jeffersonian Republicanism, however, was not in tune with the evangelical Protestantism and political sentiments of the university's trustees or much of Georgia society. He had made no provisions for the study of theology, divinity, or religion in the curriculum of this public institution and scheduled far fewer prayer sessions than at his alma mater or many other American universities. Meigs resigned under pressure in 1810 and the university de-emphasized science, increased the religious components of the school's regimen, and hired ministers as presidents until 1899. Meigs did, however, remain at the university until 1811 as the mathematics professor. From there he went on to serve as surveyor general of the United States, commissioner of the U.S. General Land Office, and president of Columbia Institute until his death in 1822.

As the biology and botany departments moved out of the newly named Meigs Hall in the late 1930s, the psychology, geography, and geology departments moved in. By 1944, geography and geology professors E. Scott Sell and Geoffrey Crickmay moved out, and psychology occupied the entire building. Seniors at the University of Georgia had taken mental philosophy courses since the school opened its doors. It was not until 1897 that university president William Boggs taught courses to juniors and seniors in the emerging science of psychology. Offerings expanded in the early decades of the twentieth century from general psychology to include social, comparative, and experimental psychology. Other branches of the burgeoning scientific field followed. These courses were taught by visiting instructors or by professors of education. The first professor of psychology was Austin S. Edwards who came to the university in 1916. After administering intelligence tests for the U.S. Army during World War I, he returned to the university as the psychology instructor for the school of education. By 1921, he headed a newly independent psychology department—a position he held for thirty years. Edwards convinced May Zeigler and Florence Young to join him as psychology faculty in 1933. While not the first, they were some of the early women instructors at the university. Edwards and Young were prominent participants in the development of psychology in Georgia. When the state passed the first state licensing law in the U.S. in 1951, they both served on the State Board of Examiners of Psychologists.

During the time that the psychology department was in Meigs Hall, it offered mental health services through the Psychology Clinic. The clinic served university students, faculty, and staff as well as the Athens community. Edwards and Young had been doing clinical work in the 1920s and 1930s, but the clinic flourished in the new building. Working closely with the Milledgeville State Hospital, the clinic frequently saw people sent from the state welfare department. It was helpful in re-acclimating World War II veterans who had enrolled in the university to civilian life and had a playroom for diagnostic and therapeutic work for children. As part of the clinic, Dr. Hudson Jost offered electroencephalograms in the building's bio-electronic laboratory. These tests measure the electrical activity of the brain to detect patterns and abnormalities. Jost conducted the tests for the clinic, the university's football team, and his own studies in brain activity.

One of the more interesting episodes in Meigs Hall was professor William James's introduction of animal behavior studies to the department in 1946. He established an animal laboratory on the top floor to conduct learning experiments on hooded rats and—beginning with a litter of puppies found in a hollow tree on campus—established a conditioned reflex lab in the basement. The budget was so meager that that he had to feed the animals with scraps from the university dining hall and acquire materials from university shops, junk yards, and cheaply purchased old pinball machines. Because of the wild rats living under the floorboard of the basement, James eventually kept the dogs in new kennels behind Baldwin Hall. Graduate students soon occupied the room.

In the 1950s, the department continued to expand and conduct research in numerous areas, often with the aid of government grants. Exploring the educational possibilities of technology, the department first offered an introductory psychology course over closed circuit TV in 1959. Two years later Charlayne Hunter took her first class in Meigs Hall when the university was desegregated. Rapid growth began in the 1960s under Dr. Joseph Hammock, department head from 1962 to 1969. Hammock worked to attract productive and well-known psychologists to the department. The growth he nurtured led many of the department's offices and classes to move to New College, leaving most of Meigs Hall to the Psychology Clinic. The building was then renovated to add a waiting room and three testing and therapy rooms for the clinic in 1963, and air conditioning was added a few years later. By 1969, however, the flourishing department moved into the new psychology-journalism complex. The psychology clinic also stopped serving as a regular mental health facility when the University Health Service began a Mental Health Division. A clinic remains in the psychology department primarily for teaching and research.

The department of Germanic and Slavic Languages moved into Meigs Hall in 1969 as a newly formed department in the college of arts and sciences. Teaching German had first been proposed at the university in the 1850s, but it was not a part of the regular curriculum until the 1870s. First a part of the Modern Languages Department, German instruction moved to the Department of English Language and Teutonic Philology by the early 1900s. Later it joined Russian, French, Italian, and Spanish in the department of Modern Foreign Languages. This department divided into Romance Languages and Germanic and Slavic Languages in 1968-1969. Germanic and Slavic Languages used Meigs Hall primarily for classrooms for undergraduate and graduate instruction and office space for professors and graduates assistants. Excessive moisture prevented the department from establishing a language lab, and a termite infestation in the 1990s further deteriorated the physical condition of the aging Meigs Hall. In 1999, the department moved to Joe Brown Hall, so that Meigs Hall could undergo major restoration and renovation.

Sources: University of Georgia, Bulletin; University of Georgia, General Catalogue; Pandora; University of Georgia, Alumni Record; Thomas G. Dyer, The University of Georgia: A Bicentennial History, 1785-1985 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985); Thomas Bowen, "Room to Grow: A Historical Analysis of the Physical Growth at the University of Georgia, 1785-1990" (Ed.D. diss., University of Georgia, 1990); Ray Mathis, ed., "Uncle Tom Reed's Memoir of the University of Georgia" (Athens: University of Georgia Library Miscellanea Publications, No. 11, 1974); Florence M. Young, History of the Psychology Department at the University of Georgia to 1969 (Athens: Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, 1985); Kenneth Coleman and Stephen Gurr, Dictionary of Georgia Biography (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1983).

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