Omer Clyde (O.C.) Aderhold

1946-1951

Omer Clyde Aderhold, a native of Lavonia, received his A.B. degree from the University of Georgia in 1923. Shortly after graduation, he was made principal of the high school at Jefferson and became superintendent of public schools in that city from 1926-29. He received his master’s in education in 1930 from UGA and resigned to become associate professor of rural education at the university. In 1937, he was made a full professor on the state of the College of Education, specializing in curriculum methods and in-service teacher training. He earned his Ph.D. from Ohio State University in 1938.

During the war, Aderhold was granted a partial leave of absence to direct war effort projects in high schools, serving as state director of the high school Victory Corps Program and organizing a professional staff to make a comprehensive survey of education problems in the state. The program was established in 508 high schools in Georgia. Participants included 63,000 in the physical fitness program, 62,000 in guidance and more than 60,000 in wartime citizenship. Preflight aeronautics was taught in 106 schools, up from eight schools the previous year. Schools in 31 counties adjusted their terms to permit students to participate in the peak-season farm program and over 100,000 part-time farm workers were drawn from the school-age population.

The Victory Corps’ objectives included: 1) career guidance for young people into critical war services and jobs; 2) citizenship training that focused on purposes of the war, patriotism and the importance of keeping wartime secrets; 3) health and physical fitness; 4) military drill; 5) mathematics and science; 6) pre-flight training; 7) pre-induction training for critical occupations; and 8) community service and civilian training.

By 1944, the elementary schools were brought into the Victory Corps, and the war effort was all-pervasive in Georgia schools. Aderhold was the organizing and driving force of the program. During this time, he made many friends with state and national leaders that would help him in his work as Dean and later, as President of the university.

We note the status of education in Georgia at the time that Aderhold became Dean of Education. An experienced teacher holding a bachelor’s degree earned about $1,500 per year. Principals with reasonable credentials and experience were paid as much as $3,000, even in some rural areas. About one-third of Georgia’s children did not finish the fifth grade. Only a little more than 50 percent even entered high school, and one-half of those who did enter, did not finish. Only about 5 percent of Georgia’s young people were going to colleges and universities. The state had a shortage of about 7,000 teachers and no immediate prospects of making a dent in that shortage.

Dean Aderhold’s vision of the mission of the College can be seen in his opening statement of its 1946-47 Annual Report:

“The wealth of the State may be measured in terms of its human and economic resources. The human resources constitute an asset to the extent that they are developed through the educative process. Dormant natural resources do not rise up of their volition and assert themselves for the betterment of mankind. They do, however, readily respond when human intelligence is brought to bear in their utilization.

“Public education is the one greatest force that can be brought to bear in developing the human resources of a state. If Georgia is to occupy a high position among the family of states it must, therefore, look forward to the development of a program of education that assures the maximum development of its human resources.”

Dean Aderhold’s commitment to taking the resources of the university out to meet the needs of all areas of Georgia, especially the rural areas, could be seen by the outburst of extension and other outreach activities of the College at the onset of his administration.

Typical of these was the on-the-jog training program for 16 school principals, chosen to represent various sections of the state.

The program included work conferences, aid in solving specific problems and consultation with members of the College Staff. The principals, were all working for master’s degrees, and were registered in the College of Education but instead of being resident students, they were serving internships in the field.

Members of the College’s Staff visited each principal’s school at least once every two weeks. Once every week the on-the-job trainees assemble in their respective areas to discuss and plan together.

The next summer the trainees became resident students in the College where they took specific course. This was followed by another year of practical work, and so on, until requirements for the master’s degree were completed.

“The on-the-job training for principals is another step toward moving education out to the taxpayers,” said Aderhold.

This was a format Aderhold understood well from the days when took vocational agricultural education to the rural areas of Georgia. He was quoted as saying with much enthusiasm, “It’s like taking the University to the people.”

The intensive involvement of faculty members of the College with the work of a county or local school system was to be repeated hundreds of times over the next few years and, indeed, remains one of the major activities of the College to this day.

Another development that came from Aderhold’s conferences with the educational leaders in the Athens area was the beginning of Saturday graduate level classes for teachers and principals. These Saturday classes eventually became weekend courses and reached their height in the late 1960s and 1970s.

In his travels around the state, Aderhold became convinced that high schools were seriously deficient in vocational counseling. In 1947, Aderhold and Professor Charles Hudgins created a program in educational counseling to help prepare teachers to assist students in these fields. Hudgins told the Red and Black in a 1947 story that the College was the only one in the South offering courses in educational counseling.

In 1946-47 the College trained 258 teachers for Veterans Farm Training Program. More than 4,000 veterans of Georgia now received instruction under men trained by the College of Education, announced Professor A.O. Duncan of the Vocational Agriculture Department.

Aderhold expanded the teacher education curriculum to require a heavier concentration on content areas in which a preservice person was planning to teach.

In 1946, Aderhold became Director of the Georgia Educational Panel, which included members of the Georgia Education Association, the College and the State Department of Education. The panel developed a plan for the addition of a 12th year to Georgia’s high school program.

In 1947, all activities and personnel of the panel were transferred to the College of Education under the new name of the Bureau of Educational Research and Field Services. “The Bureau” as it was commonly called, was destined to be a formidable force in educational circles in Georgia. It is doubtful if any group so small in any state has had such a continuing, powerful influence on a state’s educational establishment.

Aderhold was named to lead a Legislature-mandated study into the operation of schools in Georgia, determining the cause of the crisis and making a complete report of its findings and recommendations. The massive and influential study was carried out by COE faculty members like Joseph Williams, Johnnye Cox, W.A. Strumpf, L.O. Rogers and James Dickerson. In fact, it was this study and implementation of its recommendations that helped to bring Joe Williams to the forefront of the educational scene in Georgia and others parts of the nation, since he and Dean Aderhold were soon invited to speak on the topic of the Minimum Foundation Study in several states.

The Minimum Foundation Program of Education for Georgia was to become one of the most important plans in the history of education in Georgia and it had an enormous influence on other states.

Aderhold was also concerned about upgrading the credentials of the College’s faculty, a concern he later took to the university level and which helped make UGA into a national recognized university.

Aderhold continued to be a major force in education in Georgia, being named President of the Georgia Educational Association in 1949. He was influential in developing annual Teacher Education conferences in which outstanding speakers from across the nation were brought in for Georgians to hear.

Athens was rapidly becoming a conference Mecca. Many of these conferences had been meeting annually for years, but now new conferences were being held in categories such as guidance and counseling, secondary schools, music education, safety education, speech education and educational research.

It was at the height of all this activity in the present, that the College was reminded of its past. In the spring of 1950, a portrait of T.J. Woofter was presented to the College of Education in a ceremony in the Chapel. Mrs. Woofter donated the portrait and selected James Greene to make the presentation for her. Greene was the only professor still on the faculty who had been hired while Woofter was dean.

More changes were in store for the College because in September 1950, Aderhold became the President of the University of Georgia.