The First - Dr. Margaret Comstock Snell, 1889. Dr. Snell "was more interested in keeping people well than in curing them after they were taken ill."[1] In 1911 she told Dean Ava Milam, "I made up my mind that I would not cure diseased livers but I would teach people how to keep from getting them." [2]
Deans of the College
Margaret Comstock Snell 1889-1908
"Dr. Snell had remained in Corvallis after retirement and gave me a good deal of help with my early problems. I could look into her lovely, calm face with its twinkling eyes, beautiful skin, and rosy cheeks framed with snow-white hair and know that I could go to her easily and receive the best of sympathetic assistance." Ava Milam Clark in Adventures of a Home Economist (1969).[3]
"Miss Snell also received assistance at various times from Mrs. Clara H Waldo, a member of the OAC Board of Regents from 1906 to 1919. In the 1907 Catalogue Mrs. Waldo is listed as a Special Lecturer for the Short Course in Household Science." Ava Milam Clark in Adventures of a Home Economist (1969).[4]
Juliet Greer 1908-1911
Dean Greer also had responsibility as preceptress of Waldo hall. When Dean Greer left to be married to C. Bridwell, an instructor in zoology and entomology, in 1911, her staff of teachers left the campus too. Ava Milam Clark said, "The four instructors who had come from Pratt Institute with Dean Greer waited until late in the summer to resign. I never did know for certain why they left, but I suspect that they were waiting to see if one of them would be made dean. When President Kerr appointed Henrietta Calvin, a professor at Purdue University, as dean, they all resigned, leaving the administration little time to search for replacements before college opened in September." Adventures of a Home Econnomist (1969)[4]
Henrietta Calvin 1912-1915
Committee composed of Mary Eliza Fawcett, Ava Milam Clark, and Hellen B. Brooks 1915-1917
Ava Milam Clark 1917-1950
“As she nears her eighty-fourth birthday, Ava Milam Clark still has an office in the Home Economics Building where faculty, alumni, and students frequently seek her out for advice and encouragement. Since I have become dean of the school she did so much to develop, I find it helpful to be able to call on her inexhaustible fund of wisdom, wit, and optimism.” Betty Hawthorne, June 1, 1968, in Introduction to Adventures of a Home Economist (1969).[5]
"In one way [President Jasper Kerr] gave Domestic Science and Art a little better than equal treatment. He established a salary for the new dean a little higher ($2,000 vs. $1,800) than for either Agriculture or Engineering. From the beginning President Kerr was a good friend of home economics, a relationship for which I had many occasions to be thankful." Ava Milam Clark in Adventures of a Home Economist (1969).[6]
Vera Brandon 1950-1954
Miriam Scholl 1954-1964
Betty Hawthorne 1965-1984
Kinsey Green 1984-2001 [7]
[1] RG141, "NOTES FROM WHICH MISS CARRIE LYFORD SPOKE."
[2] RG141, paper written by Dean Ava B. Milam, February 1950.
[3] Adventures of a Home Economist, Ava Milam Clark, 1969.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Historical note to RG141 "College of Home Economics and Education Records, 1913-2000" collection, SCARC.
Margaret C. Snell, 1908
Second dean - Juliet Greer
Fifth dean - Ava B. Milam, 1949
Fifth Dean - Ava B. Milam, 1949
Ava Milam Clark Obituary (d. August 14, 1976)
Sixth dean - Vera Brandon (on left) with President James H. Jensen, 1965
Eight dean - Betty Hawthorne, c1960
Clara Storvick and Margaret Fincke, 1948. Margaret Fincke became the head of the Foods and Nutrition department in 1944. Fincke served as Acting Dean from 1948-1949 and 1963-1965.