This collection forms part of the records of Vice President of Academic Affairs.

The idea for Continuing Education began around 1933 with the formation of West Georgia College. A community survey conducted at that time, which was used to inform the creation of the curriculum, revealed the lack of teacher training in local rural schools and the lack of information in the community relating to the practices of agriculture, food preservation, and health and sanitation. Faculty on campus realized that they could help assist the community by developing training for teachers (who, in turn, would teach students) and adult education programs.

In 1937, President Irvine S. Ingram sent a proposal to the Julius Rosenwald Fund in Chicago for funds to create a rural education program. The Julius Rosenwald Fund gave $11,000 in that year. The University System of Georgia (USG) Board of Regents gave an additional $30,000 which was used to construct the Rural Arts Life Building on campus.

C. Porter Claxton, an agriculturalist, likely came to campus around 1937 and by 1939 his title was Director of Rural Education. He created programs to train teachers in how to improve agricultural methods and preserve food. Claxton believed that rural elementary school teachers played a key role to improving farm life, being able to teach practical skills to children along with traditional subjects. Ed Yeomans took over as director of adult education in 1940. He created cooperative educational programs within the community. It was under his direction that the community potato curing houses and canning plants began to appear. Soon, the farmers and other Carrollton citizens became interested in learning about other things. Courses were taught in geology, child psychology, local and regional history, and more. J. Carson Pritchard, director of adult education in the late 1940s, gave the program a new direction and branding as “College in the Country.”

The first College in the Country program began in 1949 as a request from the people in the Smithfield community, located in the northwest corner of Carroll County near the Alabama State line, to learn about the history of their community and the Carrollton area. By 1958, the College in the Country program had reached over 21 communities in Carroll and nearby counties. It had over 3,508 attendees, of which 2,251 were from rural areas.

Studycades, a Continuing Education travel program, operated from 1953 to 1977. Participants in the Studycade program would research a destination’s culture and politics and then travel as a group to tour significant sites.

Educators from around the world visited West Georgia College to learn about the continuing education programs and to take back ideas to their own institutions. The college had visitors from England, Ecuador, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Cambodia, Libya, the Philippines, Turkey, South Korea, and others. These visitors would sometimes be asked to talk to the college and program participants about their own country and customs.

The Continuing Education program utilized local radio station, WLBB, to distribute information and educational programs to the Carrollton area community. Radio station manager, Tom Vassy, participated in several studycade trips, making nightly reports by telephone on where the group went that day and what they learned. The recording of the report would be played the next morning on the station. Another program, “This I Remember,” were interviews conducted by Vassy with elder citizens from Carrollton about their memories from their childhood. The program was nicknamed “Oldtimers” because of all the elders involved in the interviews. The “Poetry in Song,” series on the radio was the beginning of the “Classroom 1100” program featuring West Georgia College faculty members giving weekly lectures on a variety of subjects, including history, music, English, and adult education. It was broadcast on Sunday afternoons with a repeat broadcast Wednesday mornings that allowed schools to tune in.

The Delbert Clark Award, instituted in 1954 was named in honor of Delbert Clark, Vice-President of the Fund of Adult Education of the Ford Foundation, who died before he was able to visit West Georgia College to speak. Robert Blakely from the Ford Foundation came in Clark’s stead, returned the honorarium paid to him by West Georgia College and requested that the College put it to good use. J. Carson Pritchard used the money to found the Delbert Clark Award. This award is presented annually to the top individual or community for distinguished service in the field of adult education.