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This war and its aftermath profoundly affected the University, and marks an epoch in its development.

John Maurice Thomas recalled that:

...Right after World War I, the enrollment was down at Howard. Fred Wilkinson, head of the Registrars office, proposed that Howard should admit students who had finished the Miner Normal School with two years of college credit. They would enter Howard as a junior and finish in two years. Alma accepted the proposal because she felt she was getting stale in the world, and wanted to improve her education. So she went to Howard in the fall of 1921 and enrolled under Madeline Kirkland, head of the Domestic Arts Department (Home Economics).

That same year, James V. Herring (1887-1969), a graduate of Syracuse University, was employed as an instructor in architecture, and to teach the subjects most closely related to the fine arts. According to Walter Dyson, Professor of History at the University:

...For the first time at the University illustrated lectures in the history of architecture, sculpture and painting were given by Herring. And new courses, such as watercolor, painting, and drawing from life, were added to the curriculum. By the autumn of 1921 Herring had organized these subjects into the first official Department of Art at the University. 16

Herring was the sole instructor. The new department, housed in one room on the second floor of the Applied Science building, shared space with the Engineering and Architecture Departments. The first courses offered were design, free hand drawing composition, water-color painting and life sketch.17
Herring and Thomas met during that year at the University. He taught her

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