Revised:
When South Georgia State Normal College (Valdosta State University) first opened its doors in1913, the faculty were under the supervision of John Milton Guilliams, Dean of Faculty. J.M. was a well-known educator in this region, having founded the Jasper Normal Institute in Hamilton County, FL and served as Superintendent of the East Florida Military Seminary. In 1894, he lectured at the Berrien County Teachers Institutes and at the Colored Teachers Institute in Tifton, GA.
John Milton Guilliams
Central Normal College, A.B. Holbrook Normal College, A.M. Teacher in Normal Schools in Illinois, Kansas, Florida and Tennessee. Founder of Jasper Normal Institute. Superintendent East Florida Military Seminary. Professor in Western Kentucky State Normal School. Superintendent City Schools of St. Petersburg, Florida. Institute lecturer in a number of states.
South Georgia State Normal College…“was given complete liberty to develop in any way that seems best to the Board of Trustees. At the first meeting of the Board after the school was financed, it was decided that the best interests of the State could be served by restricting the institution, for the present at least, to the higher education of young women. The College is therefore an institution of collegiate rank, providing both general and special training for the young women of the State.”
The proposal to make the institution the South Georgia State Normal College for Young Ladies was presented by Board of Trustees member Dr. Robert Crawford Woodard. His daughter, Clyde Woodard, was among the first class of students admitted to the college. Robert C. Woodard’s eldest daughter, Leila Woodard, was elected to the faculty to teach school music and piano.
Among the inaugural year attendees of South Georgia State Normal College were young women from Berrien County; Myrtle Tyson, Clyde Woodard, Lillian Allen, Bessie Griffin, Effie Patten, Olive Peters, Minnie Belle Carter, Ethel Schnauss, Alma Tyson, Ella Parr, M. T. Lewis, and C. J. Knight.
There is more of culture for a Georgia girl in the study of …the tomato, than in the study of the rarest orchid of the greenhouse. – 1914 Bulletin of The South Georgia State Normal College
It seems that a contention developed between Dean Guilliams and the faculty that could not be resolved. The Board of Trustees directed that the annual report include the following:
It appearing that Professor J.M. Guilliams does not work in harmony with other members of the faculty, this constituting the lack of good behavior such as this Board deems necessary from members of its faculty, and that his usefulness is thereby destroyed; therefore, be it resolved that he be not retained, and that his services be dispensed with. His salary to terminate at the end of the fiscal year, to wit; September 1st, 1914.
It appearing to this Board that the position of Dean of the Faculty is not longer necessary to this institution; be it resolved that the position be and it is hereby discontinued and abolished.
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