Margaret L. Lawrence

Title: Margaret L. Lawrence
LC Subject: Universities and colleges--Faculty Portraits English Lawrence, Margaret Lucile
Creator: Hise Studio
Description: Margaret Lucille Lawrence was an Assistant Professor in English. She was born in 1912 in Oelwein, Iowa. She was married to Gilbert N. Lawrence, and they had at least one son, named Richard, born in May, 1950. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English and Latin, with additional study in Library Science, from Clark College in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1933, which she attended on scholarship and graduated maxima cum laude. She went on to attend graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, the University of California at Berkeley, and Florida State College for Women, from 1937-1943, working towards a Master of Arts in English and Latin. Her thesis for her master’s degree was titled “Limited Extent of the Influence of Plautus on the Comedy of Ben Jonson: A Study in J’s Independence.” She was hired as an Instructor in English in 1945, at a salary of $2,270. In the next year, she was promoted to Assistant Professor, and her salary was raised to $7,225. Before coming to OSC, she was an Instructor in English at Florida State College for Women, in Tallahassee, for two years, until her husband was stationed in Corvallis. She was also an high school instructor of Latin and English in Iowa for about seven years, teaching at Toledo Public High School and Dallas Public High School. She was part of the American Association of University Women, where she was the secretary elect from 1945-46. In 1970, she was named the first director of OSC’s new Writing Clinic, at the time housed in the English department, where she was tasked with teaching students grammatical proficiency. She created an “English Diagnostic Test” which was administered to Writing 121 students, which she used to identify struggling students and encourage them to visit the Writing Clinic. She was on numerous university and departmental committees, including the Writing Clinic Committee, of which she was chairman. She was a performer and director in Little Theater productions in both Corvallis and Albany, and was an active member of the Corvallis Women’s Civic Chorus. After working at OSC for 29 years, she retired in 1974, at a salary of $14,278, and was awarded the title of “Emeritus” upon retirement.
Work Type: photographic prints photographs black-and-white photographs
Date: 1950
Identifier: P092:0301
Rights: In Copyright
Local Collection Name: President's Office Photographs, 1923-1998 (P 092)
Type: Image
Format: image/tiff
Set: OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center Historical Images of Oregon State University
Primary Set: OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center
Institution: Oregon State University