1936

Emory marked its Centennial with a ten-day celebration. On Centennial Day, December 10 President Cox announced by radio the launching of a $6 million development program.

1938

Emory's enrollment passed the 1,500 mark for the first time.

Emory created a stir in academic circles by discarding all technicalities of entrance requirements and stipulating instead merely a well-rounded course of high school study and graduation from an accredited institution.

The Department of Journalism was organized this year and accredited in 1941.

1941

Students asked and were permitted to attend class six days a week during January in order to accrue time for a vacation before they were drafted into military service.

Bishop Warren Akin Candler, former president of Emory College, one of the men most instrumental in founding the University, and the University's first chancellor, died and was buried in Oxford Cemetery.

The University sponsored a dance on the campus for the first time. The death of Bishop Candler had removed the most powerful opponent of this form of recreation.

The School of Law opened an evening division, which continued throughout the war even then the day division had to be suspended.

Dooley's Frolics began when the skeleton appeared at preparations for the Winter Frolics and declared "this is my party."

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, President Cox cautioned the entire student body against hysteria.

1943

Elizabeth Gambrell became the first women admitted to Emory's School of Medicine.

After the Army sent medical trainees to Emory and the Navy instituted a college training program known as V-12, military students outnumbered civilians two to one. The military predominated in other ways too, with the Navy having exclusive right of all dormitories and the University cafeteria.

1946

The U.S. Public Health Service announced that it would build a communicable disease research center on land made available by and adjacent to Emory. The center (later renamed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control) actually opened in 1960.

The GI Bill created an influx of students, pushing Emory's enrollment to 2,045 in the spring and 3,583 in the fall. To provide enough housing, the University had to obtain whatever temporary structure it could, including the more than 1000 war-surplus trailers that constituted Trailertown, three federal public housing dormitories known as Lower Slobovia, and a group of plywood and tar-paper barracks appropriately designated Mudville. The University also had to apoint 189 new faculty and staff members in the year ending in September 1946 and either purchase or erect ninety-eight units of faculty housing.

1951

A new program of adult education (now known as Evening at Emory) offered non-credit night courses.

1952

Police were called to help contain a panty raid.

The University established in interdisciplinary graduate program called the Institute of the Liberal Arts.

1953

Emory College officially became a coeducational institution. Although it had previously admitted women under limited circumstances, the College had never before had a policy through which they could enroll in large numbers and as resident students.

The administration decided to phase out the Division of Journalism.

A group of Emory men shaved a monkey and passed it off to faculty members as a visitor from outer space. The incident became known as The Great Monkey Hoax.

The two-year division of Emory-at-Valdosta closed because it could not successfully compete in that area after Valdosta's State Women's College went coed.

The Emory University Clinic was organized to enable physicians to maintain private practices while also teaching and conducting research at the University.

1957

Atlanta attorney Henry L. Bowden became the third chairman of the University Board of Trustees.

Sidney Walter Martin, former dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Georgia, became the third president of Emory University. After five years he rejoined the University System of Georgia as vice chancellor.

1959

Ten sororities received national charters.

1960

The first twelve Charles Howard Candler professorships were awarded in recognition of outstanding teaching, scholarship, and service to the school.

1963

In January, Allie Saxon and Verdell Bellamy entered Emory's School of Nursing, the first blacks to be admitted as regular full-time students. They received master's degrees the following December.

Sanford Sanford Atwood, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and a former professor of agronomy, department chairman, dean of the Graduate School, and provost of Cornell University, became the fourth president of Emory University.

The Emory Clinic addition was completed.

A Catholic Requiem mass was said in Glenn Memorial Church for assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Judson Ward, then executive vice president and dean of faculties, said the overflow crowd was "obviously deeply moved...." From that time on the mood of the students was serious involvement in national events.

1967

Wonderful Wednesdays began after the faculty voted to give students relief from classes one day a week.

1968

The Black Student Alliance was organized in the spring.

Many Emory students joined between 50,000 and 100,000 marchers in Atlanta who accompanied the mule-drawn farm wagon that carried Martin Luther King, Jr. to his grave.

1970

Students asked for and finally got twenty-four-hour visitation rights in the men's dorms. The women's dorms were opened on a more limited basis.

Students asked for and got more freedom in choosing courses to meet basic academic requirements.

The Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing moved into new quarters.

Students protested the Vietnam War, the killing of unarmed students at Kent State University in Ohio, and the presence of an ROTC unit on the Emory campus. The Board of Trustees recognized students' right of dissent but stipulated that dissent must be "orderly and peaceful, and represent constructive alternatives reasonably presented."

1973

A new home for the School of Law, Gambrell Hall, opened.

Streaking was popular among Emory students. To illustrate the fad, the Wheel printed a frontal view of a nude male. The decision cost the photograph cost Editor Geoffrey Gay his job.

1974

The ROTC unit at Emory was deactivated.

1976

The Woodruff Health Sciences Center Administration Building was dedicated.

1977

James Thomas Laney, a Yale-educated professor of Christian ethics and dean of the Candler School of Theology, became the fifth president of Emory University.

Alumnus David M. Potter posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize in history for The Impending Crisis, a book about the events leading to the Civil War during the years 1848 through 1861.

Goodrich C. White Hall opened.

1980

Woodruff professorships funded by the $105 million gift from Robert and George Woodruff were established "to attract to Emory a critical mass of internationally distinguished men and women."

The University established a number of self-study committees to determine how best to use income from the Woodruff gift to enable Emory to play and important and creative role in the nation's intellectual endeavors.

For the first time the number of women entering the College equaled the number of men.

University students organized Volunteer Emory.

1981

The Robert W. Woodruff scholarships and fellowships were created to attract outstanding students to the University.

1982

The University calendar was changed to a semester system, which eliminated Wonderful Wednesdays in Emory College.

William Arrowsmith, translator and classicist, and Richard Ellmann, Goldsmith Professor of English Literature at Oxford, were named the first two Woodruff professors. They were later joined by Ulric Neisser, psychology; Richard M. Krause, medicine; Harold J. Berman, international law; and Robert Shaw, music and the humanities.

Former President Jimmy Carter joined the faculty September 1 as a University Distinguished Professor. Emory announced that it would establish a public policy research center to be known as the Carter Center of Emory University, which would function in conjunction with the Carter Presidential Library and would study issues such as arms control, the Middle east, world health, and human rights.

Alumnus C. Vann Woodward won the Pulitzer Prize in History for his edition of Mary Chestnut's Civil War, a diary-style account of life in the South written by the wife of a Confederate landowner and statesman.

1986

A varsity basketball team began play during the 1986-87 season, and Emory joined newly formed consolidation of independent research-oriented schools called the University Athletic Association. Other charter members of the UAA were Carnegie Mellon, Case Western Reserve, the University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Washington University, New York University, and the University of Rochester.

Expecting a freshman class of 950, Emory College experienced a 30 percent increase in yield. University administrators labored to find places for 300 additional freshmen in dormitories and classrooms.

Atlanta businessman O. Wayne Rollins contributed $10 million toward the $40 million cost of a new research center in the life sciences.

The Carter Presidential Center, which includes the Carter Center of Emory University and the Presidential Library and Museum, was dedicated in October in a ceremony attended by President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan.

Emory's alumni, following the recommendations of an alumni panel, reconstituted themselves as the Association of Emory Alumni and the Emory Alumni Fund.

The first phase of the R. Howard Dobbs University Center was completed.

The University broke ground for the George and Irene Woodruff Residential Center.

The Boisfeuillet Jones Center was dedicated.

1937

Emory received one of its major landmarks, the Haygood- Hopkins Memorial gateway. It was given by Emory College alumnus and trustee Linton B. Robeson.

Robert W. Woodruff first showed his interest in Emory by founding a clinic for the study and treatment of neoplastic diseases.

1940

After ware broke out in Europe, Emory reorganized its medical unit, first created during World War I. The University also organized a committee on national defense.

Luther C. Fischer deeded Crawford W. Long Memorial Hospital located in downtown Atlanta to Emory, the gift to become effective upon his death.

1942

Emory began to offer a wide variety of "war emergency" courses, including chemical warfare, food values, and military law.

Goodrich C. White, an Emory alumnus who had served as dean of the College and the Graduate School and as a vice president, became the second president of Emory University.

The Emory medical unit, now known as the 43rd General Hospital, moved to Camp Livingston in Louisiana before being transferred to North Africa in 1943.

1944

The Nursing School began to offer a collegiate program.

Atlanta-Southern Dental College became Emory's School of Dentistry.

1945

The Navy V-12 program was discontinued.

A 10,700-ton cargo ship was christened the M.S. Emory Victory in recognition of the University's contribution to the war effort.

1948

Alumnus Alben William Barkley was elected vice-president of the United States under President Harry S Truman.

The first Ph.D. degree awarded at Emory went to Thomas P. Johnston in chemistry.

1950

Fall enrollment dropped 10.9 percent because many students joined the armed forces when the U.S. became involved in the conflict between North and South Korea.

The Alumni Memorial Student Center (later renamed the Alumni Memorial University Center) opened.

Since the end of World War II in 1945, Emory had built of acquired 107 new buildings, many of them temporary structures.

1955

Pushball was abolished for the second and final time because it resulted in "mob violence" and sometimes serious injuries.

A new administration building opened, the first on the Druid Hills campus. A gift of Charles H. Candler, it completed the Quadrangle begun in 1916.

1956

Trustees of Henrietta Egleston Hospital for Children signed an agreement to affiliate with Emory and move to a site adjacent to the campus.

After an extensive investigation of universities in the Southeast. Yale University gave Emory its Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology, then located in Orange Park, Florida. Yerkes would later be designated one of seven federally sponsored regional primate research centers.

1958

The University purchased Lullwater Estate form the Candler family. In 1963 the estate became a park for the Emory community and the residence of the University president.

Emory University issued a statement deploring the possibility that public schools would be closed in Georgia rather than integrated, and a non-credit course entitled "Crisis in the Schools" won nationwide attention.

1962

A triumvirate of Chancellor Goodrich C. White, Vice President an Dean of Faculties Judson C. Ward, Jr. and Chairman of the Board of Trustees Henry L. Bowden headed Emory University.

1965

While University trustees met to announce a $25 million capital campaign, TIME magazine hit newsstands across the country with word that a handful of young theologians had proclaimed God dead. One of the idea's chief proponents, said TIME, was Emory College's Thomas J.J. Altizer. The death of God became an international controversy, and some angry alumni called for Altizer's dismissal. President Atwood stood firm in defense of academic freedom.

The University observed its fiftieth year. A feature of the observance was publication of "Emory University 1915-1965: A Semicentennial History".

1966

Emory students organized Affirmation: Vietnam, a series of activities designed to express support for the war in Southeast Asia. The project, which culminated in a sparsely attended, rain-drenched rally at Atlanta-Fulton Country Stadium and won the George Washington Honor Medal given by the Freedom Foundation of Valley Forge, was not universally acclaimed on the campus.

The Board of Trustees renamed the University's medical complex the Woodruff Medical Center, in honor of longtime benefactor Robert W. Woodruff.

1969

Student unrest continued this year. Student Government Association President Steve Abbott was convicted for refusing to serve in the armed forces.

In response to Black Student Alliance demands that Emory hire its first full-time black administrator, Marvin Arrington, a graduate of the Emory School of Law, was appointed student personnel adviser.

The Robert W. Woodruff Library for Advanced Studies was dedicated.

1972

The Methodist Church designated the entire town of Oxford, including the College campus, a historical shrine.

Male student Ira Luft was named Miss Emory.

The one millionth volume was added to the University's libraries.

Gilbert Hall became Emory's first coed dormitory and the first to offer apartment-style living on campus.

1975

Emory's purchase of the 220,000-volume Hartford Seminary book collection helped make the theology library one of the best in the nation.

Dumas Malone became the first Emory alumnus to win a Pulitzer Prize. Malone won the history award for the first five volumes of Jefferson and his Time, a biography.

1978

The first dean for campus life was appointed to enhance the quality of life outside the classroom.

1979

Emory received approximately $105 million from the Emily and Ernest Woodruff Fund. This endowment, given by the University's longtime benefactors Robert W. Woodruff and his brother, George W. Woodruff, was the largest single gift given to an educational institution in the nation's history and led the University to announce that through the Campaign for Emory it would work to increase that amount to $160 million in five years.

The renovated Houston Mill House opened to serve as a center for the University's social functions.

Robert Strickland, chairman of the Trust Company of Georgia and grandson of James Dickey, the last president of Emory College, became the fourth chairman of the University's Board of Trustees.

The University broke ground for the William R. Cannon Chapel. President of the United States Jimmy Carter delivered the principal address.

1983

The George W. Woodruff Physical Education Center opened.

The Pollard Turman Residential Center opened.

The University began a five-year program to increase scholarships by 400 percent to enable any qualified applicant to attend Emory of Oxford colleges regardless of need.

Alumnus Claude F. Sitton, editor of the Raleigh News and Observer and a former Southern correspondent for the New York Times, won the Pulitzer Prize for journalistic commentary for ten of his newspaper columns.

1984

Alumnus Louis Harlan, a professor of history at the University of Maryland, won the Pulitzer Prize in biography for Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901-1915.

At the end of the five-year Campaign for Emory, $220,473,947 had been raised. The amount exceeded the original goal by more than $60 million.

1985

In the spring the American Dental Association approved the University's plan to phase out its Doctor of Dental Surgery program by 1988. The Board of Trustees had voted to take the step citing a decreasing national pool of qualified applicants and continuing financial losses.

Renovation of the Old Law Building provided space for the new Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeology and for the departments of art history and anthropology. The building was renamed Michael C. Carlos Hall for its benefactor.

The Emory transplant Center successfully performed its first heart transplant. By the end of 1985, nine more of the transplant procedures had been performed with all patients still living.

Business leader and philanthropist Robert W. Woodruff died March 7 at the age of ninety-five. During his lifetime had given away and estimated $350 million, $230 million of it to Emory.

1987

The two-millionth volume was added to the University's library holdings.

The University's 150th anniversary year concluded with the graduation of the Sesquicentennial Class of 1987.

The Emory/Georgia Tech Biomedical Research Consortium was established.

Wesley Woods Geriatric Hospital opened.