Academics and Scholarship

The 1950s and 1960s were marked by a series of massive expansion of academic colleges at American University. It began with the purchase of the Washington College of Law in 1949 and ended with with the closing of the Downtown Campus in 1969. The School of Business, the School of Government and Public Administration, the School of International Services, the School of Nursing, the School of Education, and the College of Continuing Education would all be created during this period. Some of these programs had existed in smaller forms under the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Public Affairs, while others were completely new and groundbreaking. The School of Business was not only the first of its kind at AU, but in the Washington, DC area when it opened in 1955.

Under this period of growth, there was also massive expansion in academic centers, programs, and outside of class educational opportunities. The 1946 Archival Summer Institute partnering with the Library of Congress and the National Archives marked the first of hundred of summer programming that would be introduced during the era. Other other noteworthy institutes included: the Air Transportation Institute (1947-1964), the Institute on US in World Affairs (1945-1966), the Institute on Taxes (1955-1967), the Institute on Transportation and Traffic Management (1948-1962), and the Institute on Genealogical Research (1950-1971). AU also expanded its academic resources with the creation of the Washington semester program in 1947 and the American Language Center which targeted bring international and government job-seeking students to the university.