Roy DeFerrari (1890-1960), pictured here in 1960, was a nationally celebrated educator and member of the Department of Greek and Latin 1918-1960, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1930-1937), and Secretary General of the University (1937-1960). As the first Dean of the newly organized Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, DeFerrari expressed the growing demand within the Department of Education for a professional school of education. Image: Special Collections, University Photographs, The Catholic University of America.

The Catholic University Cardinal Yearbook page for the Department of Education, 1950. Dr. Thomas George Foran was the first lay Chair of the Department of Education, serving from 1946 until 1953. Image: Special Collections, Archives, The Catholic University of America.

The Department of Education operated under the School of Philosophy from its beginnings in 1908 until 1930. As Department Historian and Professor Dr. John Convey notes:

“The stated purposes of the Department were to expose students to the important problems in education, the principles that formed the bases of Catholic education, and the methods of teaching various school subjects, especially the teaching of religion. The Department grew steadily in these years, helped especially by the admission of women to the graduate school in 1929.” 

As enrollment in the University grew in the 1920s, so too did enrollment in education courses. From 1924 to 1930, University enrollment went from 680 students to 1,138, and enrollment in education courses rose from 99 to 360 in that same period. 

Academic reorganization of the University, notes Catholic University historian, Joseph Nuesse, “was in the direction of prevailing American practice.” The University had been organized along European lines and underwent an Americanization process between 1920 and 1930. In the arts and sciences, the faculties of philosophy, letters, and sciences were merged into a faculty of the graduate school of arts and sciences. 

As part of this reorganization process, in 1930, the Department of Education was moved from the School of Philosophy to the new unit of Arts and Sciences. Graduate programs of the Department were moved under the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, while the undergraduate programs became part of the College of Arts and Sciences. During this period, there was a flurry of hiring and enrollment in the Department. Talk of turning the Department into a School of Education arose as early as 1923, when Archbishop Michael Curley, also the University’s Chancellor, formed a committee to study the matter. 

The idea was that education was a professional field meriting its own school, that becoming a school would facilitate accreditation processes, and that the Department not only prepared students for research and teaching, but prepared students for other aspects of education, such as administration and counseling. 

Sources:

John J. Convey, Professor of Education at The Catholic University of America, “The Catholic University Department of Education, 1908-2021 (Unpublished manuscript, 2021), Special Collections, Archives, The Catholic University of America, quote from p. 5, 5-11.

C. Joseph Nuesse, The Catholic University of America, A Centennial History (Catholic University of America Press, 1990), 249.