OSU's Graduate College history began before the first Dean was named in 1929.

With the beginning of classwork at the Oklahoma A& M. College in December 1891, there was little, if any, thought of graduate study. Committed to serving ''the sons and the daughters of the working classes" with ''practical education" but "not to the exclusion of liberal studies," the initial offerings were at a preparatory level. As the fledgling college in Stillwater began to grow and to produce undergraduates, the need for postgraduate study became apparent. Even before the turn of the century, Grace Morrow (a graduate of the University of Illinois, who had accompanied her father to Stillwater when he became president in 1895) enrolled in some "postgraduate" courses at Oklahoma A. and M. College—although the course work was not designated as "graduate level" study. The first announcement of graduate course work came in the 1911 catalog, and the first person to receive a graduate degree was Robert O. Baird in 1912. The next seventy-eight years of OSU's first century would see the development of a nationally recognized Graduate College of some 4,200 students in 1990, with 17 master's level programs and 45 doctoral level programs.

 

The story of the growth and development of the graduate program at Oklahoma State University is a fascinating one, as it operated and prospered initially (from 1912-1929) under the leadership of a Graduate Committee, and subsequently under the direction and leadership of the dean.

 

A more comprehensive account of the history of the OSU Graduate College can be found  here.