Rogers, Jonathan, PhD

Born September 7, 1885, Richmond, IN; Died October 24, 1967, Gainesville, GA. B.S. Piedmont College (1906); B.S.C.E., Earlham College (1907); M.A. Columbia University (1927); Hon. Ed.D., Piedmont College (1934). Related to both George Rogers and William Clark, Rogers taught at Oakwood Seminary in NY until 1911 when he joined Piedmont College. There he taught and served as Dean until 1934 when he became President of North Georgia College at Dahlonega. Under his stewardship, enrollment at North Georgia rose from 160 to 702, and a school on the brink of closure was saved. He came to UGA as President in January, 1949. After leaving the University in 1950, Rogers directed Tallulah Falls School (1951-53) and worked at Reinhardt College as a math professor and counselor from 1957 to 1962. He was also a man of deep religious conviction whose service to the Methodist Church spanned nearly half a century. Accomplishments: Rogers served in a time of brief but acute financial austerity which came between the postwar boom and the steadier growth of the later 1950s. In spite of this, he worked with the Board of Regents to centralize the control of the Agricultural Experiment Stations under University control. This clash over jurisdiction of agricultural education would be costly, as it would result in the dismissal of both Rogers and Agriculture School Dean Harry Brown in 1950.