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Evolution
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The Country's involvement in World War II
                                         in the early 1940s affected the College
                                         community in different ways. With many
                                         hearing faculty in military service, more
                                         Gallaudet graduates were given teaching jobs
                                         at the College. Many deaf people moved into
                                         jobs in war production plants, including
                                         alumni and a number of Gallaudet
                                         undergraduates, who took leaves of absence
                                         to work in the plants, thus reducing
                                         enrollment.


  Dr. Leonard M. Elstad, who received his
                                         master's degree from the College in 1922,
                                         became the third president of Gallaudet in
                                         1945. Within three years, the College
                                         curriculum was revised, establishing six areas
                                         of concentration: education, home
                                         economics, language and literature, science
                                         and mathematics, social studies and library
                                         studies, and printing. A two-semester
                                         program replaced the existing three-term
                                         system. During the 1950s, the College
                                         received a substantial increase in government
                                         funding, which in turn allowed for increased
                                         enrollment (from approximately 200 to 700
                                         students, including more international
                                         students) and for new facilities such as an
                                         academic building, a gymnasium, and a
                                         library named for Edward Miner Gallaudet.






1954

By an act of Congress, the corporate name of the Institution was changed to
                                         Gallaudet College.







1957

The College was accredited by the
                                         Middle States Association of Colleges and
                                         Secondary Schools, Commission on
                                         institutions of Higher Education.






1967

The first budgeted Alumni Office was
                                         opened and a full-time director hired.






1969
An agreement between Elstad and the
                                         U.S. Department of Health, Education, and
                                         Welfare enabling the implementation of Public
                                         Law 89-694 provided for the establishment
                                         of the Model Secondary School for the Deaf
                                         (MSSD) to devise, develop, and test
                                         innovative and exemplary courses of study
                                         for deaf and hard of hearing high school
                                         students. With Elstad's retirement that year,
                                         Dr. Edward C. Merrill, Jr., the fourth
                                         president of Gallaudet, assumed the
                                         responsibility for implementing the plans for
                                         MSSD. Mervin D. Garretson, a Gallaudet
                                         alumnus, was appointed first principal of
                                         MSSD. 









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