Through the vision of Methodist Bishop John Fletcher Hurst, the idea of a national university, an idea born with the nation itself, came into being.
The university trustees finally broke ground in 1896. Money was hard to come by so it took a long time to hire teachers and start holding classes. After more than two decades devoted to principally securing financial support, the first graduate students were admitted in 1914 and President Woodrow Wilson officially dedi-cated the university on May 27, 1914. The first degrees a master's de-gree in agricultural eco-nomics and two doctoral degrees in agricultural chemistry were award-ed in 1916.
As a national university, AU's mission was to pre-pare the public servants of the future to effectively serve their country. With this vision in mind, the university grew quickly during the 1920s. During the first ten years of operation, instruction was offered at the graduate level only in accordance with the original plan of the founders. Undergraduate programs were estab-lished in 1925. Since that date, both under-graduate and graduate degrees have been offer-ed by the University. These undergraduate programs were begun in order to train young people for public service.
Many of American's clas-ses were in government and political science. American opened its downtown graduate school at F Street, NW in 1920. In 1925 University Hall (now known as Mary Graydon Center) opened its doors as the school's first women's dormitory.
Throughout the 1930s the university struggled to remain open and functioning. Like the rest of the country, the Great Depression hit American University hard. The administrators, through the support of the Methodist Church, were able to keep the uni-versity open. The student population dwindled, however, because of the lack of people who were able to afford tuition.
By 1940 American had recovered and enroll-ment was back up to about 1,000 students. As the nation prepared to enter World War II in 1941, the university offered the campus to the War Department to aid in the war effort. Just as the campus had been used for training and chemical testing in World War I, the Navy used the campus for research and bomb defusing training (they did not use live bombs) during World War II. Offering the campus for military use was a fitting gesture for the university, since the land on which American Uni-versity is located was the site of the Union's Fort Gaines during the Amer-ican Civil War.
The period following World War II began a long and steady time of growth. University Pres-ident Hurst Robins Ander-son led the university through this tremendous time of development. The present structure of the University began to emerge during this per-iod. The Washington Se-mester Program was established in 1947. The Washington College of Law, founded in 1896 "primarily for women", merged with the university in 1949. The School of Business and the School of Interna-tional Service were added in 1955 and 1957, respectively.
The growth of the university during the 1950s and 1960s truly helped Amer-ican to become an institution dedicated to experiential learning. The new School of Government and Public Administra-tion (now called the School of Public Affairs), and the School of International Service gave more students ef-fective opportunities to use Washington, D.C., as a classroom. This philo-sophy, of using the nation's capital as a learning tool, is an inte-gral part of AU's history and overall philosophy.
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