Clark Atlanta University in USA

Clark Atlanta University is a comprehensive, private, urban, coeducational institution of higher education with a predominantly African-American heritage. It offers undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees as well as certificate programs to students of diverse racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. The University was established in 1988 through the consolidation of its two parent institutions, Atlanta University (1865), the nation’s first institution to award graduate degrees to African Americans, and Clark College (1869) the nation’s first four-year liberal arts college to serve a primarily African-American student population.

Atlanta University, founded in 1865 by the American Missionary Association, with subsequent assistance from the Freedman’s Bureau, was, before consolidation, the nation’s oldest graduate institution serving a predominantly African-American student body. By the late 1870s, Atlanta University had begun granting bachelor’s degrees and supplying black teachers and librarians to public schools across the South. In 1929-1930, the institution began offering graduate education exclusively in various liberal arts areas, and in the social and natural sciences. It gradually added professional programs in social work, library science and business administration. The institution during this period associated with Spelman and Morehouse colleges in a university plan known as the Atlanta University System. The campus was moved to its present site, and the modern organization of the Atlanta University Center emerged.

The story of the Atlanta University Center over the next 20 years includes significant developments. The schools of library science, education and business administration were established in 1941, 1944 and 1946, respectively. The Atlanta School of Social Work, long associated with the University, gave up its charter in 1947, to officially become part of the University. One of the founding faculty in the School of Social Work was W.E.B. Du Bois, who wrote his most influential works during the 23 years he spent at Atlanta University, from 1897-1910 on the faculty of the history and economics departments, and later, from 1934-1944 as chair of the sociology department.

Clark College was founded in 1869 as Clark University by the Freedmen’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which later would become the United Methodist Church. The University today celebrates its historic bond with the denomination. Clark University was named for Bishop Davis W. Clark, who was the first president of the Freedmen’s Aid Society and became bishop in 1864. The first Clark College class was housed in a sparsely furnished room in Clark Chapel, a Methodist Episcopal Church in Atlanta’s Summer Hill section. In 1871, the school relocated to a newly purchased property at Whitehall and McDaniel streets. In 1877, the school was chartered as Clark University.