Indiana University. College of Arts and Sciences

The College of Arts and Sciences faculty began meeting formally in 1927. The group reviewed policies, curriculum, as well as statistics pertaining to admission, enrollment, and matriculation. The College faculty no longer meet.

The College of Arts and Sciences was created in 1828, when Indiana College was chartered, as the College of Liberal Arts. The departmental organization within the College was introduced in 1887. In 1921, the name was officially changed to the College of Arts and Sciences.

The Arts and Sciences faculty began meeting formally in 1927. Their meetings consisted of reviewing policies and curriculum recommendations, as well as statistics pertaining to admission, enrollment, and matriculation. Although it is difficult to pinpoint the year in which the faculty as a whole last met, other records in the IU Archives seem to reflect an ending date of circa 1970.

The records contained within this collection span the period from 1927 to 1958.

The College of Arts and Sciences, originally called the College of Liberal Arts, began in 1828 with the chartering of Indiana College. Until the Law School was established in 1889, the college of the Liberal Arts was the only permanent division of the University. The statutes governing the University which date from this period deal chiefly with what is now the College of Arts and Sciences. At first Greek and Latin were the only two subjects being taught at the College of Liberal Arts. Gradually the natural and abstract sciences, history, and literature courses were added. The departmental organization of the College was formed in 1887 and consisted of 15 departments. During the period covered by this collection the College of Arts and Sciences had more than 40 degree-granting departments in addition to Optometry and Social Service schools which operated under its auspices. The name was changed from College of Liberal Arts to the College of Arts and Sciences in 1921.

Born in Philadelphia, Frank Thomson Gucker, Jr. (1900-1973) studied at Haverford College and Harvard. After completing his Ph.D. in Chemistry at Harvard in 1925, Gucker spent two years at the California Institute of Technology as a research fellow and worked for E. I. DuPont de Nemours and Company before joining the faculty at Northwestern University in 1929. He came to Indiana University in 1947 as professor and chairman of the Department of Chemistry. He became dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 1951, a position he held for fourteen years. During his tenure the College of Arts and Sciences tripled in size, and many of his assistants went on to become administrators at Indiana University and other colleges and Universities. They included George Waggoner, Sam Braden, L.L. Merritt, Joseph Sutton and John W. Snyder.

Gucker launched the College's study of foreign areas in 1956, which led to the establishment of the Russian and East European Institute. He was actively involved in the establishment of the Wrubel Computing Center and the Radiochemistry building, and the appointment of a School Coordinator to form a liaison between the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Education, and the high schools of Indiana. He was instrumental in developing the High School Junior Summer Language Institute, the High School Summer Science Institute, and the Indiana Language Program. In 1958 he helped establish the department of History and Philosophy of Science.