Fred Davison was appointed as the University of Georgia's 17th President in July 1967, inaugurated on July 1, 1968, and served until June 30, 1986, the third longest presidential tenure in the University's history. His presidency was marked by an unprecedented expansion in depth, size, variety, and quality of the University's research programs, its public service outreach programs, library resources, faculty and student body, and post-graduate education. Under his leadership, the University attained a ranking among the nation's top 50 research universities; its increased library holdings placed the University in America's top 30 libraries; and the institution became nationally ranked in the total number of honors students enrolled. Research expenditures grew from $15.6 million to more than $96 million during his presidency, reflecting a significant increase in competitively awarded contracts and grants received by the University of Georgia. Enrollment grew from 15,600 to 25,000 and graduate student enrollment more than doubled to 4,500.
While the chronological bulk of the records from the Frederick C. Davison Papers covers his tenure as President of the University of Georgia from 1967 to 1986, there are also documents to be found in the papers dating from as early as 1937 and as recently as 1988. The broad groupings within the Davison papers do not break geographically into cohesive series, beyond certain interactions with entities such as the university system Board of Regents, but it is fair to characterize several broad subject categories as series by virtue of the volume of records present in the accession. It should be noted that the location of records within certain of these series may well not be confined to a single geography within the larger body of Davison records. 1) Administrative Interactions with Deans and Vice Presidents 2) Athletics 3) Correspondence File 4) Developmental Studies 5) Inaugural Files. 6) Speeches 7) Student Affairs/Student Unrest 8) University of Georgia Bicentennial 9) University System of Georgia/Board of Regents.
The collection is arranged as a large, continuous Administrative Subject/Correspondence file.
Frederick C. Davison papers, UA97-101, University Archives, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University Archives, The University of Georgia Libraries.
Related audiovisual materials from this collection are housed in the Walter J. Brown Media Archive: http://purl.libs.uga.edu/brown/har-ua97-101/bmac-coll