In 1915, Grady was founded as a
school of journalism by
Steadman Vincent Sanford, a young professor who later as president (1932–35) and chancellor (1935–45) of the
University System of Georgia, was the architect of the modern University of Georgia. Classes were first held in the Academic Building near the university's iconic Arch just off Broad Street. Early courses included newspaper reporting and correspondence, editorial writing, history and principles of journalism, psychology of business procedure and newspaper advertising. In 1921, the school's name was changed to the Henry W. Grady School of Journalism in honor of university alumnus
Henry W. Grady, an Athens native and white supremacist who served as part-owner and managing editor of the
Atlanta Constitution in the 1880s. Grady's first graduate, in 1921,
Lamar Trotti, became a producer of major motion pictures for
20th Century Fox. He received an
Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay in 1945 for
Wilson. The second graduate, in 1922, John Eldridge Drewry, became the school's longest serving director and dean (1932–69), and created a national reputation for the school. In 1940, Drewry established the
George Foster Peabody Awards to address the fact that
Columbia University, home of the
Pulitzer Prize, did not accept radio broadcast entries (Peabody Awards for
television were introduced in 1948 and categories for material distributed via the
World Wide Web were added in the 1990s). By 1929, enrollment at Grady, which had moved into the south wing of the Commerce-Journalism Building the previous year, was nearly 70 students and included 20 women who graduated with bachelor's degrees in journalism. A master's degree program was authorized in 1938. In 1961,
Charlayne Hunter-Gault, along with
Hamilton E. Holmes, became the first two
African-American students to
desegregate the University of Georgia. In 1963, Hunter-Gault graduated with a journalism degree from Grady and went on to a notable career in multimedia news reporting. The current Journalism Building located just north of
Sanford Stadium was dedicated in 1969. A doctoral program was established in 1983. Two years later, the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research began operations and has since conducted hundreds of training programs involving countries across the world, and published numerous research and technical reports. The New Media Institute was founded in 2000 to explore the creative, critical and commercial implications of emerging digital communication technologies. In 2015, the National Press Photographers Association moved its headquarters to Grady. == Academics ==