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Vol. XXVIII, No. 3 CLARK COLLEGE - ATLANTA, GEORGIA February, 1965 CLARK CELEBRATES 96™ YEAR History Influenced by Church .... HENRY PFEIFFER HALL — One of the Dormitories at Clark Today. Graduating class is shown in procession as they proceed to Commencement exercises in the main auditorium. Clark College has its roots in the Christian Church. It was founded by the Freedman’s Aid Society of The Methodist Episco pal Church, and named to honor its president, Bishop D. W. Clark, in 1869. The type of training envisaged by the founders of the college is reflected in an allusion to the first instructors who were described as being “good scholars and successful teachers,” who were expected to “labor in the Sunday as well as the day schools.” In the chaotic conditions which characterized the post Civil War milieu, the establishment of the college was indeed one result of a great movement for the intellectual and moral elevation of the race. Chartered as Clark University in 1877, the basic purpose of the insitution was “to promote learning, afford suitable opportunities for the acquirement of knowledge, and to foster piety and virtue as essentials of proper education.” Clark offered its first degree in 1883. It went to James M. Cox, and in the years immediately following Clark graduates became Presidents of Bennett, Philander Smith and Morris Brown Colleges, but courses in woodworking, harness-making and iron-working still occupied much of the curriculum. The beginning of divisional or departmental organization came in 1934, and by 1938 the administration was advancing the idea of the “student-centered” college in which the goals came to be “the challenging, stimulating, guiding and counseling of students toward the end of developing a wholesome and integrated personality.” After these years of remarkable progress events occurred that shaped the advent of the third and current period in Clark’s history. This period opened with the changing of the name of he institution to Clark College, the move to the present site in an entirely new plant and the inauguration of Dr. James P. Brawley as 17th President. DEMOLISHED in the fifties to make room for Bethlehem Community Center, Thayer Home was built by the Methodist Women's Division of Christian Service. Its name was transported to a building on the new campus. WfU '*41 I • 1 The move of the new campus and the accompanying academic developments brought Clark full Class A accreditation three years later, and the college eventually became one of the first institu tions serving Negro students primarily to win membership in the regional accrediting agency. It also provided a sound financial base for the college and enabled a closer association with the complex of colleges already established in Atlanta’s west side. In 1941 Clark College became, physically, the newest of the southern colleges which served Negroes, but with the physical move came many of the traditions of the old campus. The move was made possible through a gift of the General Education Board of The Methodist Church, the Rosenwald Fund and Mrs. Annie Mterner Pheiffer. 3<rA_/va The New Administration Building built in 1941