Tuesday, March 17, 2015

No Finley Hall?


The University of Georgia is on its 22nd president.

Of the previous 21 presidents, most have buildings or facilities named after them. The current and two most recent presidents -- Morehead, Adams, and Knapp -- of course do not. Too soon for that sort of thing. But what's kinda interesting is there are a few presidents from the hazy past with nothing at all named after them.

Take, for example, Jonathan Rogers and Henry Stanford.

Best I can tell, there's no Rogers Hall, at least not at UGA. There is a Rogers Road on campus, but I can't tell if that's a UGA street or city street (it looks UGA-ish). And on it are the Rogers Road Apartments. So, who is Rogers?  As the source of all knowledge, Wikipedia, tells us:
Rogers' tenure at UGA was very brief due to a power struggle with some members of the Georgia Board of Regents over whether the College of Agriculture should remain a part of the University or become its own institution. UGA kept the school; however, the clash cost Rogers his job.
So Rogers served from 1949-1950. The fact that he fought the Board of Regents, in my mind, makes him deserving of a building.

So what about Stanford? No, not Sanford. He has a stadium and a road. This is Stanford. He was kinda sorta president, really interim president, from 1986-1987. As Wikipedia tells us:
Stanford served during a period of turmoil. The reputation of the University had been sullied as a result of an unfavorable ruling by a federal jury in a case brought by Jan Kemp, who had asserted that she was unlawfully fired for speaking out against alleged preferential academic treatment for athletes.  
The Kemp mess really belonged to Davison, who has a nice big building with his name on south campus, though for consistency's sake you'd think all the former presidents would have something -- a building, a stadium, and outhouse -- named after them.

Finally, and to me the most interesting -- UGA's fourth president, Robert Finley. As Wikipedia tells it:
Finley fell ill while traveling south to assume his new position at the University of Georgia. He died only three months after arriving and is buried in Jackson Street Cemetery on the school's north campus in Athens, Georgia.
There is a Finley Street in town and, ironically, it intersects with Meigs Street (another former UGA prez), but best I can tell no Finley Hall.

This excludes rooms or labs or some such that may be named after a person but are hard to identify online. Corrections welcomed.




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