East Carolina University began as a teacher training school (ECTTS), grew into a teachers college (ECTC), then became a four-year liberal arts college (ECC), and finally a university with impressive graduate programs in education, the arts, health sciences, and business. Progress was hardly inevitable: at each stage, decisive, forward-minded leaders deployed professional wisdom in politically strategic, advantageous ways to move things forward in realizing the school’s mission of service. In its first advance, President Robert H. Wright guided the transition, securing the achievement, necessarily political, further distinguishing his leadership of the progressive pedagogical movement seeking to realize quality public schools, compulsory education, and universal literacy, statewide.
East Carolina’s growth coincided with the early-twentieth century revolution in American public education. The century’s opening decade occasioned a boom in school construction but was followed by the realization that many hastily founded facilities, inadequate and ill-equipped, had to be replaced with more professionally informed ones. Compulsory education soon became the norm, and in tandem, the academic year grew from a few months to a few more. WWI added increased impetus for universal literacy, having laid bare the sad state of American education on the battlefields of Europe.
In North Carolina, Wright emerged as a prominent advocate of greater investment in facilities and teaching professionals for the educational future of the state. In addition to his role as president of ECTTS, he served as chair of the State Commission on Education, and in that capacity alerted the governor and state political leaders to glaring problems in school facilities and the need for more professional teacher training. Wright’s thinking is everywhere apparent in his commission’s study, Public Education in North Carolina: A Report by the State Education Commission, published in 1920. The progressive agenda outlined in that study played an instrumental ideological role in East Carolina’s advance from a training school for teachers to a four-year teachers college, thereby accelerating its momentum in service through excellence in public education.
The study endorsed the recently established teacher certification system and enhanced salaries for well-trained instructors, but also advocated expanded training facilities as essential to securing increasing numbers of professionally trained faculty. The study noted that teacher training programs at the University (now, UNC-CH) and the College for Women (now, UNC-G) needed increased investment. It emphasized that ECTTS, founded to train elementary teachers, remain focused on that task exclusively. However, the study lamented that despite growing demand for well-trained elementary school faculty, the two-year curriculum at ECTTS did not qualify its graduates for the highest grade of teacher certification. The latter required completion of a four-year curriculum of instruction. The study therefore asserted that “the time has undoubtedly come when the East Carolina Teachers Training School should be raised in rank so that it may offer four-year as well as two-year professional courses.” It added that while its work should be limited to training elementary school teachers, principals, and supervisors, “the capacity of the school should be doubled.”
Even before Public Education in North Carolina was published, the ferment of its ideas was apparent when the state legislature passed an amendment, introduced by ECTTS trustee and state senator Fordyce Harding (1869-1956), to an earlier statute defining the school’s educational limits. Simply put, Harding’s amendment gave ECTTS “the power to confer degrees.” Moreover, it struck from the previous statute a restriction limiting ECTTS to offering nothing more than “a curriculum … which would fit and prepare a student for unconditional entrance into the Freshman Class of the University of North Carolina.” Ratified on August 25, 1920, Harding’s amendment empowered ECTTS to grant bachelor’s degrees, allowing it to do the work of a teachers college, even though it did not yet bear that name.
At the October 12, 1920 ECTTS Faculty Assembly meeting, Wright encouraged planning for an expanded curriculum for the following academic year. At the faculty’s next meeting, held on October 18, history faculty member Sallie Joyner Davis made a motion, seconded by math faculty, Maria Graham, that ECTTS implement a four-year curriculum of instruction and grant
bachelor’s degrees. Davis’ motion, echoing the state legislation, received unanimous support. At the November 2, 1920 meeting, the faculty voted to recommend to the Board of Trustees approval of a four-year curriculum. Two days later, on November 4, 1920, the Board of Trustees lent its unanimous support to the recommendation, advancing East Carolina toward a four-year program empowering it to grant degrees.
Realizing the weighty nature of the challenge at hand, Wright told his faculty at its October 5 meeting, “The eyes of the state are upon us and we cannot afford to fail.… The scheme of education in North Carolina is now being pushed forward more rapidly than ever before in the history of the state. In this forward movement we must be leaders.… The teacher is to be the savior of our civilization. This is the noblest task given to man during this critical period in the world’s history. Money is insignificant in comparison with the work that is before us: we must save the people…. We must give these students the highest ideals that can be given….”
Simultaneously, Wright encouraged faculty to propose a new name that would better communicate the school’s new mission as a four-year, degree-granting institution. At the October 18, 1920 Faculty Assembly meeting, English faculty member Mamie Jenkins moved, and Maria Graham seconded, a motion to change the school’s name. At the November 2, 1920 meeting, the faculty approved a new one, North Carolina Teachers College, and, as an alternative, East Carolina Teachers College. Some in the community proposed others such as “Jarvis College” and “Ragsdale College,” honoring those founding fathers.
Before taking the matter to the trustees in November of the following year, Wright, appealing to the recommendations of the State Educational Commission, pursued at the state level, funding requests, and at the local level, a building campaign to physically expand the campus with a succession of new buildings: two new dorms (one, later, Fleming Hall, 1922-1923,and the other, later, Ragsdale Hall, 1923), a library (later, Whichard, 1923), and a Social and Religious Building (later, Wright, 1925). These additions grew the campus into a more impressive facility than the old, somewhat cumbersome name, ECTTS, suggested.
Even as plans for expansion continued, Wright approached the trustees at their November 10, 1921 meeting regarding the name change endorsed by his faculty. Wright emphasized that the current name was a “misnomer,” one wrongly suggesting that the school was nothing more than a practice facility when it was clearly much more. To make name and reality consistent, Wright presented the faculty proposal. The trustees agreed but preferred a name altering the identity of the school as little as possible, i.e., East Carolina Teachers College. Having endorsed Wright’s vision, the trustees called on the state legislature to approve the name change.
On December 17, 1921, the state legislature amended an existing statute, replacing “Training School” with “College,” thus recognizing in law what had, in effect, become the case following the 1920 amendment, that East Carolina was a four-year degree-granting college devoted to teacher education. Without public fanfare or grand political drama but instead via dedicated, high-level service and professional integrity, Wright and his faculty had lifted East Carolina to the next level in service to the state and the cause of an educated citizenry. There was, admittedly, “much rejoicing among the student body when the announcement was made that the legislature had authorized the name change.”
Immediately, the local press began referring to ECTTS as ECTC, proud of the new status achieved. With the spring of 1922, East Carolina’s annual publication, earlier known as the Training School Quarterly, was renamed Teachers College Quarterly. The transition was heartfelt on campus, with the class of 1922 well aware of its historic standing as the first to graduate from East Carolina Teachers College. Commencement ephemera boldly bore the new name and a new school seal. The senior class, however, ended up with class rings already inscribed with the old name, though their diplomas and pins had the new. Within a couple of years, ECTC published its first yearbook, the Tecoan, a crisp, Algonquian-like neologism abbreviating Teachers College Annual. Despite the momentous transition, the Teachers College Quarterly downplayed the change, quipping, “The new name is merely to keep pace with what we had been doing long before.” Indeed, the Association of Teachers Colleges of America had
admitted ECTTS to its ranks once its four-year curriculum was approved, a year before the official name change.
The summer issue of the 1922 Teachers College Quarterly continued the milestone celebration. Wright authored the opening article, “The Status of Teachers Colleges,” reflecting on their recent growth in the U.S. and their crucial mission in educating teachers about teaching. The same issue recognized the school’s first recipients of the bachelor’s degree: Virginia Faison Pigford (1901-1978) of Faison, N.C., and Gertrude Chamberlain (1897-1962) of Cheraw, S.C. The two were also the first ECTC graduates awarded A-grade teaching certificates. They had immediately enrolled, in 1920-1921, in the newly expanded curriculum of instruction after having graduated from ECTTS in 1920. Pigford and Chamberlain thus became forerunners of the tens of thousands of college graduates who followed, giving real substance to Wright’s vision of East Carolina as a pedagogical powerhouse serving the cause of educational progress.
Sources
- Bratton, Mary Jo Jackson. East Carolina University: The Formative Years, 1907-1982. Greenville, N.C.: East Carolina University Alumni Association, 1986.
- “Chapter 27: An Act to Amend Section 5863 and Section 5870 of the Consolidated Statutes of North Carolina relating to the name of the East Carolina Teachers’ Training School.” Public Laws and Resolutions passed by the General Assembly, 1921. Raleigh: Mitchell Print. Co., 1921-1941. P. 72. https://digital.ncdcr.gov/digital/collection/p249901coll22/id/245760/rec/1
- “Chapter 69: An Act to Amend Sections 5865 and 5867, Article 9, Chapter 96 of the Consolidated Statutes of North Carolina relating to conferring degrees and relating to course of study prescribed at East Carolina Teachers Training School.” Public Laws and Resolutions passed by the General Assembly, 1920. Raleigh: Mitchell Print. Co., 1921-1941. P. 100. https://digital.ncdcr.gov/digital/collection/p249901coll22/id/235179/rec/90
- “Class Day Exercises program 1922.” June 5, 1922. Digital Collections # 50.06.1922.05. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/22307#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-604%2C-190%2C3690%2C3794
- “College News and Notes: The Change of Name.” Teachers College Quarterly. Vol. 9, no. 2 (January, February, March 1922), p. 219. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/23184
- “Commencement Program Card, 1922.” June 3-6, 1922. Digital Collections # 50.06.1922.02. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/22304
- “Commencement Sunday Order of Service 1922.” June 4, 1922. Digital Collections # 50.06.1922.03. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/22305
- “Commencement Sunday YWCA Program 1922.” June 4, 1922. Digital Collections # 50.06.1922.04. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/22306
- “D. Hendrik Ezerman piano recital program.” University Archives # UA45.04.01.04. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/24145
- East Carolina Board of Trustees. Minutes. August 12, 1921, November 10, 1921.
- East Carolina Faculty Assembly. Minutes. October 5, 12, 18 and November 2, 1920.
- “East Carolina Teachers College.” Teachers College Quarterly. Vol. 9, no. 2 (January, February, March 1922), pp. 173-174. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/23184
- “East Carolina Teachers College, the New Name Authorized Yesterday.” Greenville News. December 18, 1921. P. 1.
- “ECTC Seal.” Date, 1922. University Archives # 55-02-1922 4/4-cover. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/10232
- “Invitation to Commencement Exercises 1922.” June 4-6, 1922. Digital Collections # 50-06-1922-06. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/22593
- “Legislative Grind.” News and Observer. December 14, 1921. P. 12.
- “Regular Courses at Summer School: Atmosphere of Seriousness Pervades Students Attending East Carolina.” News and Observer. June 20, 1921. P. 4.
- State Educational Commission. Public education in North Carolina: A report by the State Educational Commission. Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton Printing Co., 1920), pp. 121-122. Digital Collections LA340.G4 1920. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/16886
- “Teachers College Quarterly.” Teachers College Quarterly. Vol. 9, no. 2 (January, February, March 1922), p. 172. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/23184
- Tecoan, vol. 1. Greenville: East Carolina Teachers College, 1923. http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/15328
- “The Educational Capital of Eastern North Carolina.” News and Observer. March 21, 1922. P. 4.
- “Thirteenth Annual Commencement of the East Carolina Teachers College.” Date, June 6, 1922. Digital Collections # 50.06.1922.01. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/22303
- Wright, Robert H. “The Status of Teachers Colleges.” Teachers College Quarterly. Vol. 9, no. 4 (July, August, September, 1922), Pp. 371-377.
Additional Related Material
Top: "The College Group, Summer 1922"
Bottom: Virginia Pigofrd and Gertrude Chamberlain, the first recipients of bachelors degrees from East Carolina Teachers College.
Image Source: Vol 9: The Teachers College Quarterly July, August, September 1922
Citation Information
Title: ECTTA becomes ECTC
Author: John A. Tucker, PhD
Date of Publication: 4/29/2020