Robert Colder Beaty Papers

Robert Colder Beaty was the University of Florida's second Dean of Students. He was born near the town of Ripley, Mississippi, April 23, 1890. After graduation from Mississippi College in 1917 and service in the army during World War I, Beaty earned an MA as a student in the YMCA's Southern College at Vanderbilt in 1921. He came to the University of Florida in 1926 as assistant secretary of the campus YMCA. In 1928, he accepted a position as Assistant Dean of Students under Dean B. A. Tolbert. When Dean Tolbert died in 1937, Beaty was asked to take his place. After serving briefly as Acting Dean, Beaty accepted the Dean's chair in 1939. In 1949, a new position, Dean of Student Personnel, was created to head the student affairs office. In the meantime, the University of Florida became coeducational and Beaty was appointed Dean of Men. Beaty became Dean of Student Personnel in 1955 and served in that capacity until his retirement in 1960.

Beaty was recruited to the Dept. of Sociology upon his arrival to Florida in 1926. He introduced a course on race relations and also taught Marriage and Family and other sociology classes. In 1934, he began doctoral studies in sociology at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. Soon afterwards, he left to serve one year as the state director of the National Youth Administration in Florida and never completed his dissertation. He held the rank of full professor when he retired.