Ramblins

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Ramblins

By Pat Edwards
Ramblin' Reck Club

The dictionary tells us that a Dean of Students is an administrator who has responsibility over a whole or part of the student body of a college or university. But the students at Tech have enjoyed a succession of deans that requires a far more generous description: that of an educator whose lecture hall is the campus, and whose subject is life.

Tech's first Dean of Students was Floyd Field, a fierce mathematics professor who came to Tech in 1906 and soon earned the nickname "Bobcat" from his students. He rose quickly in the department, so by 1909 he was the head of Mathematics.

Field mentioned several times to Tech's Board of Trustees that Tech was doing little to support and develop the personal aspects of the students. In 1921 he successfully lobbied for the creation of the office of Dean of Men, an office that he promptly sought and acquired, provided that he continue to serve as the Head of the Mathematics Department, teach ten hours, and do so without a pay raise.

Dean Field, undaunted by the administration's lack of generosity, accepted the commission without hesitation. Indeed, he continued to act as the Mathematics Head until 1934, and he taught until 1944.

Dean Field was an avid "roadster," who graced Tech with a succession of vehicles, some elegant some hideous, including a 1916 Ford that some grant the distinction as the first Ramblin' Reck on campus.

Dean Field's hobby for cars and road touring led to the establishment of perhaps Tech's most beloved homecoming tradition, the Ramblin' Reck Parade. Founded as a road race, called the "Flying Fliver Race" and run from Atlanta to Athens, the event started in 1929.

Field developed the Greek system at Tech into a vibrant mechanism for social interaction for the student body. He suggested that the Inter-Fraternity Council (IFC), or Panhellenic Council as it was known then, should maintain a quarterly comparative register which would rank houses by GPA and audit the finances of the fraternities.

With these improvements, along with the founding of a fraternity row along Third Street, Floyd Field created a Greek system at Tech that acted as a foundation on which student life was established. This made the Greek System the standard by which others were measured at that time.

Dean Field also led the establishment of the Student Council, a student government and honor court, and the establishment of the local chapter of Omicron Delta Kappa.

When Dean Field retired in 1945 at the end of World War II, his replacement, George Griffin, had a resume that established him as the archetype for a Tech dean.

Griffin had been a student at Tech who was admitted as a sub-freshman 1914, and he graduated in 1922 after serving in the Navy in World War I. He was an active student who belonged to many student organizations, and he participated as a member of the track team and the practice football team with William Alexander.

Dean Griffin had experience on the other side of the divide, acting as a mathematics instructor, as well as an administrator in the positions of Assistant Dean of Students, Personnel Coordinator, Alumni and Student Placement Directors, and Alumni Club Organizer. He also acted as a coach for the freshman football team, a trainer, and a long time track coach.

However, it is the office of Dean for which he is revered at Tech, and for which he is immortalized in a statue on the plaza adjacent to the Student Services Building.

Robert Wallace described Griffin as having "spent more time than most policeman in the Atlanta courts and jails trying to get his boys out of trouble made more speeches... and started more organizations and plans to help Tech students than everyone else combined."

Dean Griffin founded what was the second of its kind in the nation: a placement center for assisting students to locate employment, as well as an emergency loan fund for students.

Griffin, whose forgetfulness was legendary, was the founder of the "sackbrain" club. According to Griffin, this group was for people who "ought to be carrying [their] brains around in a sack, lest [they] forget it."

Dean Griffin retired in 1964, handing his reins to Dean James Dull. Dean Dull drew up the plans for implementing the peaceful integration of Georgia Tech while he was Associate Dean of Students in 1961, and he is rightly remembered as the father of the Ramblin' Reck.

While attending a track meet at Florida State in 1961, Dull saw a 1930 Ford Model A Cabriolet that Captain Ted Johnson of Delta Airlines had recently refurbished. Dean Dull negotiated the sale of the vehicle from Johnson and gave her to the students in the guise of the Ramblin' Reck Club to keep for the Institute. That same car still acts as the premier icon of Tech, and can still be seen driving about campus, as well as leading the Yellow Jackets on the field at all Tech home football games.

Dean Dull is still a great supporter of Georgia Tech. Once, in the late 1980s, Dull won a contest by a local television station to have a wish granted. His wish was to offer a "Good Morning America" from the front seat of the Ramblin' Reck in a video shot for the morning television news show of the same name.

The Deans of Students of Georgia Tech have always stood as advocates and supporters of the students. With this proud tradition set for them, those of the future will do so as well.