History of the College of Education

The University of Alabama has long been concerned with programs for the preparation of public school personnel. In 1844, only 13 years after the University's establishment in 1831, a Normal Department was provided for those who wished to prepare for teaching careers. In 1872, the Normal Department become the Normal School. By 1899, the Trustees had replaced the Normal School with the School of Pedagogy and Psychology, which in 1902 became the School of Philosophy and Education. In 1908, the school was reorganized as the Department of Education; one year later further organizational changes resulted in the name being changed to the School of Education. The present College of Education was established in 1928. Until 1924, the University's offerings in teacher education were almost entirely limited to undergraduate programs for elementary and secondary teachers. Graduate work in school administration was added in 1924; and all programs, undergraduate and graduate, were greatly expanded during 1927 and 1928. Doctoral programs were authorized in 1951. Currently, the College of Education is divided into five departments.

Facilities

Bibb Graves Hall

In 1927, President Denny and Dean Doster asked Professor McLure to assist with the plans for expanding and reorganizing the School of Education. It was McLure who was largely responsible for the creation of the College of Education. He collaborated, especially with Professor Ralph W. Cowart, in the design of Bibb Graves Hall. McLure suggested that the passage from the Ordinance of 1787 grace the stone entablature above the building’s main entrance.

Bibb Graves Hall was dedicated in 1929 and named in honor of Governor Bibb Graves. A Warren, Knight, and Davis design, its main entrance is on the corner facing the intersection of University Boulevard and Colonial Drive. One enters at ground level through a massive engaged portico of ionic columns. Above the entablature and cornice is a stone attic, in the manner of a Roman triumphal arch, bearing an inscription from the famous 1787 ordinance: “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” These words were also a part of Alabama’s first constitution.

In 1928 the ground was broken by Dean James J. Doster (pictured left) and President George H. Denny (pictured right) for the construction of Bibb Graves Hall, the academic building for the newly created College of Education. The three-storied brick, stone, and slate structure was formally opened on June 21, 1929. The wing containing the auditorium was added to the original 60,000-square-foot building in 1939.

Several of the first-floor rooms formerly occupied by the College’s administrative offices were renovated for use as computer classrooms and laboratories.

A major renovation of Graves Hall was completed in 2006. Today, the building houses regular classrooms, high technology classrooms, science laboratories, and several large computer laboratories. Additionally, the building houses the Office of Clinical Experiences and the programs and faculty offices for curriculum & instruction; special education and multiple abilities; educational leadership, policy and technology studies; and counselor education.

Carmichael Hall

The first Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library (now Carmichael Hall), built in 1925, was intended to serve as a temporary library until funds to erect a larger structure could be secured. It was then to be converted into an administration building. Initially, only the lower floor was used for administration. The building is similar in scale and design to Nott Hall, directly across the Quadrangle.

The upper two floors housed the library until the completion of the Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library. It had a capacity of about 60,000 books in stacks kept closed to students. The general reading room, containing current, occupied the whole front section of the third.

After the library was moved to its new quarters in 1940, the building served as the administrative headquarters for the University until the construction of Rose Administration Bulding in 1969. In 1971 the old building was renamed Carmichael Hall in honor of President Oliver Cromwell Carmichael.

Following extensive renovations in 1995, Carmichael Hall became the home of the College Dean's office. The UA/WA In-Service Education Center, the Capstone Education Society, and the Office of Development are also housed in Carmichael. The programs in educational and school psychology and educational research are located on the third floor, and the Office of Student Services is located on the first floor of this three-storied building.

McLure Library

McLure Library, built in 1925 by Miller, Martin, and Lewis, was originally the University post Office and Supply Store. In the late nineteenth century the former had been operated out of one of the lower floor rooms in the Gorgas House by Postmistress Ameilia Gayle Gorgas, and later it was moved to the first floor of Woods Hall. The “new” Post Office in McLure Hall and the soda fountain in the University Supply Store were popular meeting places for students in the 1920s and 1930s. The basement of the structure housed a large student cafeteria that took over the functions of the old dining room in Woods Hall.

According to Dean McLure, during the 1952-1953 academic year, the single most important activity of the College was the work conducted by committees on the plans to alter the University’s cafeteria to serve as the College’s library. The plans included a main reading room, a periodical room, a graduate reading room, a cataloging room, and a five-floor stack room with a book capacity of 100,000 volumes. The basement would house the curriculum laboratory, and the top floor was slated for the Department of School Library Service. The building, which became the education library in 1953, was named in honor of Dean John Rankin McLure in 1975 who served as Dean of the College of Education from 1942 to 1959. Professor Waverly Barbe served as the head librarian in the 1950s. A November 5, 1957, Tuscaloosa News article named the library as “one of the best in the U.S.” In 1975, the building was named in honor of Dean John Rankin McLure who served as Dean of the College from 1942 to 1959.

Frank Moody Music Building

The Music Education and Music Therapy programs are housed in the Frank Moody Music Building. The building contains both the choral music and the instrumental music programs.

The School of Music had long outgrown its quarters in the Music and Speech Building when plans to erect a large new building were first envisioned. It was originally intended to be built in the northwestern section of campus as part of the liberal arts grouping of buildings proposed by the 1961 Greater University Development Plan. With the acquisition of land on the east side of campus in the 1970s, a new site was selected and construction was begun on the building in 1986.

The Frank Moody Music Building is named after a prominent Tuscaloosa banker and benefactor of the University. Woollen, Molzan and Partners of Indianapolis, and Fitts and White Associates of Tuscaloosa were the architects. A nationally known acoustic consultant, Lawrence Kirkegaard, assisted. The unusual design is a departure from the traditional Classical Revival style of the central campus and from the modern style of the Ferguson Center and the Law Center. The architects used the victorian campus buildings as their source of inspiration and freely interpreted such elements as steeply pitched gables, unusual window shapes, and Victorian asymmetry.

The building houses both instrumental and choral music programs that were, before its construction, spread over the campus. It contains classrooms, a media center, practice rooms, and offices. In addition, there is a lecture-recital hall that seats 150 people. The building’s showpiece, however, is a 1,000-seat concert hall patterned after the home of the Vienna Philharmonic. The complex opened in January 1988 with a series of concerts including a performance by Metropolitan Opera soprano Marilyn Horne.

Moore Hall

Moore Hall was constructed in 1935 as an addition to Little Hall. The buildings are attached by a short portico. Little Hall, named after William Gray Little, the student who introduced football to campus in 1892, was constructed in 1915 as a "great gymnasium" (Crimson-White, May 1909). Also a gymnasium, Moore Hall was named in honor of A. B. Moore, the first dean of The University’s Graduate School (1925-1958) and President of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (1951-1952). Currently, Moore Hall houses the offices of the Department of Kinesiology of the College.