Ohio University’s Expansion, Diversification and Globalization, 1930s–1960s 

The Rapid Expansion of Ohio University

Amidst the backdrop of the Great Depression, Ohio University underwent significant transformations and a massive reorganization. In 1936, the new president, Herman Gerlach James created University College to help first-year students acclimate to the rigors of university life and founded the Graduate College to expand post-graduate education. He also split apart the two colleges, Liberal Arts and Education, into five new ones: Arts and Sciences, Education, Applied Science, Commerce, and Fine Arts. Students, just over 3,000 in number, were expected to have a strong liberal arts general education. 

World War II and its Consequences for the University

The onset of World War II dramatically transformed life at Ohio University, which had created an ROTC program in the mid-1930s. Two hundred students and staff went off to war, and by 1945, the student body had dwindled to only 1,300 students, mostly women. That would soon change as the 1944 GI Bill promised an education to the nearly 16 million men and women who had served in the armed services. New president John Calhoun Baker immediately set about expanding the university to meet heightened demand. In one year, the university grew to 5,000 students, 75 percent of whom were veterans. Despite the logistical challenges that this rapid expansion presented, the GI Bill opened up educational opportunities, including in the humanities fields, to a wider and more diverse number of Americans. More individuals from working class backgrounds, women, and Black Americans pursued advanced studies in history, English, classics, foreign languages and other disciplines. They naturally asked different questions than their predecessors, a trend that continued as Baby Boomers’ arrival on campus in the 1960s and made Ohio University one of the fastest growing institutions in the country. In the 1960s and 1970s, the legacy of the Vietnam War, the GI Bill, and the Civil Rights movement continued to reshape humanities disciplines, with more scholars highlighting the systemic injustices facing women and persons of color. 

[Fun Fact: The Mann Special Collections contains the Cornelius Ryan collection, an extensive archive of the author and war correspondent’s World War II materials.]

International Education in Peacetime

Even as war continued to transform the university, the pursuit of peace and international exchange in its aftermath also shaped the intellectual life on campus. President Baker provided funding to attract more international students to Ohio University and encouraged expanding the study of world history and culture. In 1953, Dweight Eisenhower invited him to serve as the U.S. delegate to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, and Ohio University later hosted Secretary-General of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjold. Under Baker’s successor Vernon Alden, International Studies further expanded Ohio University’s international profile by creating the Center for International Studies and offering master’s degrees in African, Southeast Asian, and Latin American studies. In 1982, former President Baker and former First Lady Elizabeth Baker endowed the Elizabeth and John Baker Peace Studies Program, which under the auspices of the Contemporary History Institute continues to host an annual spring conference designed “to encourage the education of students and the general public in the means by which peace can be established and maintained throughout the world.”