by Roger K. Thomas

The University of Georgia's (UGA) curriculum included psychology, at least as early as 1840, in a course based on Upham's textbook, The elements of mental philosophy. Psychology instruction was administered by the UGA's Franklin College until 1908. In 1908, the Peabody College of Education was formed, taking with it psychology which was taught in the Department of Philosophy and Education.

The founder of the Department of Psychology as such was Austin S. Edwards (1885-1976). Edwards, a native of Oswego, New York, earned his Ph.D. degree in 1912 as a student of E. B. Titchener (1867-1927). From 1912-1916, Edwards served on the faculty of the University of Minnesota, and in 1916, Edwards came to UGA. Titchener had earned his Ph.D. with Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920), the acknowledged founder of experimental psychology. However, Edwards' interest included both experimental and applied psychology. After military service (1917-19) during World War I with Robert M. Yerkes group which developed the Army Alpha Intelligence Test, Edwards returned to UGA as Head of Psychology. In 1921-22, he succeeded in gaining independent departmental status for Psychology and in having Psychology returned administratively to the, now, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Edwards successfully petitioned to have the Psychology Department grouped with the Natural Sciences and, later, with the Division of Biological Sciences which explains why the original pre-doctoral degrees in psychology at UGA were the B.S. and M.S. degrees. Today, however, the department affiliates with the both the Division of Biological Sciences and the Division of Social Sciences. Although the M.S. degree has been the only masters degree ever offered by this department, for many years, students could elect to earn either a B.A. or B.S. degree in Psychology. In conjunction with UGA's conversion from the quarter system to the semester system in 1997, a number of curriculum changes were implemented, and at that time the Department voted to cease offering the B.A. degree. Presently, the Department offers B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees.

Thanks to Dr. Edwards, the UGA chapter of Psi Chi, the national honorary society for psychology students, was a Charter Chapter when Psi Chi was founded in 1929. Dr. Edwards was the only full-time faculty member in the department until 1933-34, when a general reorganization of the state of Georgia's University System brought Florene M. Young (1901-1994; clinical and developmental) and May Zeigler (1882-??, general psychology) to the department. Other early faculty members were William T. James (1903-1998), comparative and physiological who arrived in 1945, R. Travis Osborne (1913 - ) psychometrics and counseling arrived in 1946, and J. Stanley Gray (1894-1968) industrial and organizational arrived in 1947. Dr Osborne was appointed Director of the University's Counseling and Testing Center in 1947.

Originally, the department was located in part of the Academic Building (renamed the Holmes-Hunter Academic Building in 2001 to acknowledge the 40th anniversary of the admission of UGA's first two students of African-American ancestry). As the department grew, it relocated to the Strahan House which was demolished to build the Law School Annex in the 1960s. In 1937, Psychology relocated to Meigs Hall. Faculty expansion occurred rapidly in the 1960s, and by 1964, the Psychology Department fully occupied both Meigs Hall and New College. The six-story, Psychology Building, newly constructed, was first occupied on January 1, 1969.

Dr. Edwards started doing psychology clinic work in 1920, but 10 years passed before the Clinic was recognized formally by the University. Dr. Edwards served as Department Head until 1951 and as Clinic Director until 1950. Dr. Florene Young was appointed Assistant Clinic Director in 1936 and Director in 1950, a position she maintained until her retirement in 1969. Dr. Edwards and Dr. Young were instrumental in developing the first licensing laws for psychologists in Georgia. Dr. Edwards served on the original Board of Examiners of Psychologists and had the honor of receiving the first license issued to a psychologist in Georgia. Other early license holders were Dr. Travis Osborne, number 15, and Dr. Young, number 19. Dr. Young also served on the Board of Examiners from 1953-1968. Dr. William Boardman served on the Board of Examiners from 1975-1978 and had just begun a term as President of the Board when his car was struck by a negligent driver in an automobile accident in January, 1978. This history would be incomplete if it overlooked Geraldine Moon, the first departmental secretary, hired in 1951. When Mrs. Moon retired in 1993, she was supervising a staff of 16.

In the early 1960s, the Clinical Psychology Program was developed with the goal of APA accreditation (achieved in 1965-66). The remainder of the faculty constituted the General-Experimental Psychology Program. In 1967, it was proposed that a separate program be formed for "Social Psychology, Personality, and Psychological Measurement," but the result was that, by 1970, the Applied Psychology, Biopsychology (now Neuroscience & Behavior), and Social Psychology programs had been formed to accompany the Clinical and General-Experimental programs. The most recent program, Life Span Developmental Psychology, was implemented in 1987. Meanwhile, "General-Experimental" deleted "General" from its name in the 1980s, and in 1991, the Experimental Program changed its name to Cognitive-Experimental.

The first Ph.D. degree was conferred by the department in 1959 to William F. Angemeier, who was supervised by Dr. William T. James (see above). The first woman to earn a Ph.D. from the department was Elizabeth C. Aderhold in 1966. She was a student in the Clinical Program and was supervised Dr. Carl Siprelle. The first African American to earn a Ph.D. from the department was Samuel M. Turner (1974). He was also in the Clinical Program and was supervised by Dr. Henry E. Adams. Dr. Turner received the Distinguished Professional Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association in 1998. For the past two decades, at least, approximately 20 Ph.D. degrees per year have been conferred.

The succession of Department Heads and their years of service have been Dr. Austin S. Edwards (1919-1951), Dr. Florene M. Young (1951-1952; Dr. Young agreed only to be Acting Head until a search for Dr. Edwards' replacement could be done), Dr. Hudson Jost (1952-1959), Dr. William T. James (1959-1962), Dr. Joseph C. Hammock (1962-1969), Dr. Charles L. Darby (1969-1974), Dr. Milton H. Hodge (1974-1976), Dr. R. Bryan Payne (1976-1977; Acting Head), Dr. William B. Pavlik (1977-1984), Dr. Roger K. Thomas (1984-1993), Dr. Joseph D. Allen (1993-1999), and Dr. Garnett S. Stokes (1999 - Present).