Kathryn A. Blake

1981-1982

Kathryn A. Blake served as dean of the College during the tumultuous year after the prolific Joe Williams retired. She faced a massive budget crisis that devastated the College.

Part of the crisis involved the involuntary conversion of the Fiscal Year contract to an Academic Year contract for faculty. This was a defactosalary reduction for faculty members affected. This FY/AY shift had a severe impact on faculty morale, as it amounted to a major change in behaviors and planning regarding personal finances.

Blake, a native of Jacksonville, Fla., came to UGA in 1959 as a young assistant professor of special education from Syracuse University where she had completed a study on pupil motivations. She hit the ground running by directing a $24,017 federal research grant to study the effectiveness of different techniques in teaching three kinds of children—those with a normal range of intelligence, those who are retarded and those considered gifted.

In fall 1961, she receive a grant of nearly $40,000 to study efficient learning conditions for children of those same three levels of intelligence. Several publications and other grants developed out of this work, and her research was widely recognized as some of the most important work of its time.

In 1965, Blake and Marion Rice secured a contract for the federally funded Research and Development Center in Educational Stimulation. Its annual budget was $400,000. The funds that came to the center allowed the hiring of a considerable number of new faculty members and provided support for many graduate assistants over those years.

Blake was destined to become a Distinguished Alumni Professor, head of the Division of Exceptional Children, one of the most successful grant writers in the history of the College, and the only woman among 50 scientists honored by the university in a special ceremony for their distinguished contributions to research.