Campus Names Committee Records
Collection
Identifier: MS034
In 1964, the Campus Names Committee was appointed by Georgia Tech President Edwin Harrison to recommend names for campus buildings and streets. The correspondence that comprises this collection details the discussions amongst the members of the group, as well as the community-at-large.
None.
Permission to publish materials from this collection must be obtained from the Head of Archives and Special Collections.
0.2 Linear Feet
The Campus Names Committee records include biographies, campus map, construction reports, and correspondence. The Georgia Tech News Bureau wrote biographical sketches in support of building names. Included with the campus maps are programs from building dedications. The quarterly construction progress reports detail the status of buildings from 1968-1971, listing the architectural firm, contractor, construction cost, square footage, and the estimated completion date.
The bulk of this collection is comprised of letters between Glenn Rainey, chair of the Campus Names Committee, other members of the committee, Georgia Tech faculty, and Presidents Edwin Harrison, Arthur Hansen, Vernon Crawford (acting) and Joseph Pettit. Letters addressed to Rainey from faculty are usually a formal nomination of a building name, while letters from Rainey to the current Georgia Tech President ask or advise a decision on the naming of a particular building. Nearly all of the nominations were approved.
Georgia Tech President Edwin D. Harrison appointed several faculty members to a committee to name (or re-name) campus buildings and streets in 1964. Prominent alumni, faculty, and administrators were selected in an ongoing process that continued under the presidential terms of Arthur G. Hansen and Joseph M. (Joseph Mayo) Pettit.Glenn Rainey, a professor in the English Department, oversaw the group as chairman beginning in 1967.
A faculty member would normally nominate a late professor to be honored in the naming of a building. The Campus Names Committee would then recommend the name to the President and notify the public relations office, which would write a biographical sketch. The President would then send a letter and the biography to the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia for approval.
The records are arranged alphabetically by folder title, and chronologically within each folder.
A print copy of this finding aid is available in the Georgia Tech Archives reading room.
Glenn Rainey, chair of the committee, gave the materials to August W. Giebelhaus when he was co-authoring Engineering the New South. Giebelhaus, in turn, donated the materials to the Archives in June 1987. Accession #1987.0707 (old number: 87-07-07).
Yen M. Tang processed these papers in 2000.
Part of the Archives and Special Collections, Library, Georgia Institute of Technology Repository