University of Virginia Library

MARY WASHINGTON COLLEGE MATTERS

RESOLUTION RE: SERVICES OF DR. COMBS

The following resolution, prepared by Mr. Garnett at the request of the Board, was adopted:

RESOLVED by the Rector and Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia:

We hereby extend to Morgan Lafayette Combs, President of Mary Washington College of the University
of Virginia our heartiest congratulations and best wishes upon the completion by him of
twenty years of service as President of Mary Washington College.

After a successful career in the public school system of Virginia, as superintendent of
schools of Buchanan County, State supervisor of high schools, State director of educational research
and surveys of Virginia, instructor at William and Mary summer school and professor of education at
George Washington University, he was named as President of Mary Washington College (then Fredericksburg
State Teachers College) to succeed the late A. B. Chandler, Jr., and assumed that post in January,
1929. The improvements in and additions to the physical plant and the administrative and teaching
staff wrought under his administration have been of such a character that the General Assembly has
consistently increased the annual appropriations, and in 1944 passed a statute for the purpose of converting
within four years Mary Washington College into a liberal arts college for women, with the same
standards of admission and graduation which obtain for male students in the College of Arts and Sciences
of the University located at Charlottesville and making it an integral part of the University system.
With the guidance and help of the President of the University, Dr. Combs has successfully accomplished
that purpose. His success is attested by the fact that, although the admission requirements have been
raised to make the college open only to the upper half of high school graduating classes, the enrollment
at Mary Washington College has increased from 460 to 1,744, thus constituting that institution as
the largest women's college in Virginia.

REPORT ON HOUSING ACCOMMODATIONS

The Board requested that President Combs be asked to prepare a report on housing accommodations
at Mary Washington College, setting forth the number of occupants per building, the number of
rooms per building, and the number of occupants per room.

There being no further business to come before the meeting, the same was adjourned after a
motion to that effect had been made, seconded, and carried.