The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly called Georgia Tech , Tech , and GT ) is a public, coeducational research university in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States. It is a part of the University System of Georgia and has satellite campuses in Savannah, Georgia; Metz, France; Athlone, Ireland; Shanghai, China; and Singapore.
The educational institution was founded in 1885 as the Georgia School of Technology as part of Reconstruction plans to build an industrial economy in the post-Civil War Southern United States. Initially, it offered only a degree in mechanical engineering. By 1901, its curriculum had expanded to include electrical, civil, and chemical engineering. In 1948, the school changed its name to reflect its evolution from a trade school to a larger and more capable technical institute and research university. Georgia Tech is organized into six colleges and contains about 31 departments/units, with a strong emphasis on science and technology. It is most recognized for its degree programs in engineering, computing, and the sciences, but also offers degrees in architecture, liberal arts, and management.
Georgia Tech's main campus occupies a large part of Midtown Atlanta, bordered by 10th Street to the north and by North Avenue to the south, placing it well in sight of the Atlanta skyline. In 1996, the campus was the site of the athletes' village and a venue for a number of athletic events for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Whereas, previously, the Midtown location placed Georgia Tech students in the middle of one of the highest metropolitan crime-rate areas in America, the construction of the Olympic village along with subsequent gentrification of the surrounding areas greatly increased public safety.
Student athletics, both organized and intramural, are an important part of student and alumni life. The school's intercollegiate competitive sports teams, the Yellow Jackets, and the nationally recognized fight song "Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech", have helped keep Georgia Tech in the national spotlight. Georgia Tech fields 8 men's and 7 women's teams that compete in the NCAA Division I athletics and the Football Bowl Subdivision. Georgia Tech is a member of the Coastal Division in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
History
Main article: History of Georgia TechEstablishment
The idea of a technology school in Georgia was introduced in 1865 during the Reconstruction period. Two former Confederate officers, Major John Fletcher Hanson (an industrialist) and Nathaniel Edwin Harris (a politician and eventually Governor of Georgia), who had become prominent citizens in the town of Macon, Georgia after the Civil War, strongly believed that the South needed to improve its technology to compete with the industrial revolution that was occurring throughout the North. However, because the American South of that era was mainly populated by agricultural workers and few technical developments were occurring, a technology school was needed.
In 1882, the Georgia State Legislature authorized a committee, led by Harris, to visit the Northeast to see firsthand how technology schools worked. They were impressed by educational models developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial Science (now Worcester Polytechnic Institute). The committee recommended adapting the Worcester model, which stressed a combination of "theory and practice", the "practice" component including student employment and production of consumer items to generate revenue for the school.
On October 13, 1885, Georgia Governor Henry D. McDaniel signed the bill to create and fund the new school. In 1887, Atlanta pioneer Richard Peters donated 4 acres (1.6 ha) of his extensive land holdings to the state; this land was bounded on the south by North Avenue, and on the west by Cherry Street. He then sold five adjoining acres of land to the state for US$10,000, equivalent to about US$241,333.33 now. This land was located near the northern city limits of Atlanta at the time of its founding, although the city has now expanded several miles beyond it. A historical marker on the large hill in Central Campus notes that the site occupied by the school's first buildings once held fortifications built to protect Atlanta during the Atlanta Campaign of the American Civil War. The surrender of the city took place on the southwestern boundary of the modern Georgia Tech campus in 1864.
Early years
The Georgia School of Technology opened its doors in the fall of 1888 with two buildings. One building (now Tech Tower, an administrative headquarters) had classrooms to teach students; The second building featured a shop and had a foundry, forge, boiler room, and engine room. It was designed specifically for students to work and produce goods to sell and fund the school. The two buildings were equal in size to show the importance of teaching both the mind and the hands; though, at the time, there was some disagreement to whether the machine shop should have been used to turn a profit.
On October 20, 1905, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt visited the Georgia Tech campus. On the steps of Tech Tower, Roosevelt delivered a speech about the importance of technological education. He then shook hands with every student.
Georgia Tech's Evening School of Commerce began holding classes in 1912. The evening school admitted its first female student in 1917, although the state legislature did not officially authorize attendance by women until 1920. Annie T. Wise became the first female graduate in 1919 and went on to become Georgia Tech's first female faculty member the following year. In 1931, the Board of Regents transferred control of the Evening School of Commerce to the University of Georgia (UGA) and moved the civil and electrical engineering courses at UGA to Tech. Tech replaced the commerce school with what later became the College of Management. The commerce school would later split from UGA and eventually become Georgia State University. In 1934, the Engineering Experiment Station (later known as the Georgia Tech Research Institute) was founded by W. Harry Vaughan with an initial budget of $5,000 ($81,247 today) and 13 part-time faculty.
Modern history
Founded as the Georgia School of Technology, Georgia Tech assumed its present name in 1948 to reflect a growing focus on advanced technological and scientific research. Unlike most similarly-named universities (such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology), the Georgia Institute of Technology is a public institution.
Tech first admitted female students to regular classes in 1952, although women could not enroll in all programs at Tech until 1968. Industrial Management was the last program to open to women. The first women's dorm, Fulmer Hall, opened in 1969. Women constituted 30.3% of the undergraduates and 25.3% of the graduate students enrolled in Spring 2009. In 1959, a meeting of 2,741 students voted by an overwhelming majority to endorse integration of qualified applicants, regardless of race. Three years after the meeting, and one year after the University of Georgia's violent integration, Georgia Tech became the first university in the Deep South to desegregate without a court order. There was little reaction to this by Tech students; like the city of Atlanta described by former Mayor William Hartsfield, they seemed "too busy to hate". Similarly, there was little student reaction to the Vietnam War and United States involvement in the Cambodian Civil War. The student council defeated a resolution supporting the Vietnam Moratorium, and the extent of the Tech community's response to the Kent State shooting was limited to a student-organized memorial service, though the Institute was ordered closed for two days, along with all other University System of Georgia schools.
In 1988, President John Patrick Crecine pushed through a restructuring of the university. The Institute at that point had three colleges: the College of Engineering, the College of Management, and the catch-all COSALS, the College of Sciences and Liberal Arts. Crecine reorganized the latter two into the College of Computing, the College of Sciences, and the Ivan Allen College of Management, Policy, and International Affairs. Crecine never asked for input regarding the changes and, consequently, many faculty members disliked his top-down management style; despite this, the changes passed by a slim margin. Crecine was also instrumental in securing the 1996 Summer Olympics for Atlanta. A large amount of construction occurred, creating most of what is now considered "West Campus" for Tech to serve as the Olympic Village, and significantly gentrifying Midtown Atlanta. The Undergraduate Living Center, F
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