What’s In A Name?

The History of Eidson House

Many Georgia Southern alumni and students are familiar with the Williams Center, which houses the Office of Student Activities, but what about Veazey Hall, the Rosenwald Building or the Eidson House? Several buildings on the expanding campus bear the names of men and women who have made significant contributions to the University, but do you know anything about some of these individuals?

For instance, did you know the Eidson House is named for John Olin Eidson, Georgia Southern’s seventh president who served from 1968-1971?

The building on the corner of Herty Drive and Georgia Avenue was originally built in 1954 as a residence for then-President Zach Henderson. His successor, John Eidson and his wife, Perrin, were the second and last presidential couple to live there before it was converted to an Alumni House in 1972 with guest rooms for visitors to the campus. By 1980, it had become an office building for the Alumni Association and the Georgia Southern Foundation. It was named the John Eidson Alumni House in a ceremony on April 28, 1995, and is now home to the University’s Honors Program.

The Eidsons relished the idea of living on campus where they would invite students and faculty to join them for meals and conversation. Eidson was only president for three years, but in the book The Southern Century, Professor Emeritus Delma Presley noted those were action-packed years that left a deep imprint on the college for decades to come. Presley remembers him as being an “old-fashioned English professor” who had broad interests in subjects beyond his field of expertise and calls him a “gifted leader” who introduced new approaches to managing the academic organization.

Eidson introduced faculty governance through a faculty senate, the first organizational chart and began a planning process. Perhaps the most important activity he initiated was for the future campus. Realizing the need for upgrading the campus infrastructure, Eidson committed funds to an underground utility system more than a decade before the building boom began in the late 1980s.

He is credited with reorganizing Georgia Southern’s academic structure into schools and departments instead of divisions. The School of Arts and Sciences, The School of Education, a graduate school and the School of Business were authorized during his leadership. The first Callaway Professorship and the Division of Continuing Education were created during his tenure. Eidson was president when the College submitted its first proposal for a doctorate in education, and he supported the move from the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) to the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association).

The Fulbright Fellow and Tennyson scholar left Georgia Southern when the Board of Regents appointed him Vice Chancellor of the University System of Georgia. A gift left to the University by the Eidson estate is currently worth more than $875,000 and funds the John Olin Eidson Honors Program Scholarship, which gives out scholarships yearly to Honors students. – Sandra Bennett