Mabel Clair Mack was a home demonstration agent, Extension Nutritionalist, Professor, and Assistant Director in the School of Home Economics from 1928 to 1967. She was born in 1897 in Aldrich, Missouri, and grew up on a farm in Linn County, Oregon where she attended Lincoln High School in Portland. She received her Bachelor of Science from OSC in 1928. She completed graduate work at OSC and Cornell University, eventually receiving her Master of Science from OSC in 1940. She published an article titled “After the Growing Comes the Harvest” in the Agricultural Bulletin, of the Oregon State Department of Agriculture in September 1944. She was a member of the Christian Church and many honorary societies and clubs, such as the Oregon Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, Omicron Nu, and the Oregon Home Economics Association. She began as a home extension specialist in Clackamas County, and was briefly transferred to the Central Office in 1934 to cover for a colleague’s leave of absence. In 1943, she took a leave of absence to work with the Federal Cooperative Nutrition project during the World War 2, and was made Assistant State Supervisor a year later. In 1945, she transferred back to the extension project in home management, where she supervised the activity of emergency assistants. She took sabbatical leave during Spring term of 1938 to do graduate work at OSC. She was made Acting Specialist in Nutrition in 1940, hoping to develop projects in family financial planning in addition to nutrition work. However, to meet the demands of the national defense program in nutrition, she was appointed to the newly-created Specialist in Nutrition in 1941 during the war. Later, her titled was changed to “Extension Nutritionist.” She received a Farm Foundation Extension Scholarship in 1948 to spend a year studying at the University of Chicago, in the Division of Social Sciences of the Department of Education, on half salary. She was appointed to the instructional staff of the School of Home Economics in 1956 on a part-time basis to assist in teaching coursework on home economics extension to prospective extension workers. In 1963, at a salary of $13,632, she announced her retirement. Her friends and colleagues declared this date an “important one in the history of the Extension service as it marks the termination of a distinguished career in Extension from both state and national standpoints.” They referred to her as one of the “ablest” home extension agents in the entire country, claiming that she had done so well in Oregon that her services were eagerly sought on a broader scale, and threw her an inter-departmental goodbye party. In 1966, OSU requested permission to employ her on a part-time basis, hoping to use her assistance in organizing and conducting special training conferences.
Miriam Scholl was Dean of Home Economics from 1954 to 1965. She was born in 1907 in Seattle, Washington, to parents George Warren Scholl and Emily Grosser. She received her Bachelor of Science in Institution Management, with minors in science and liberal arts, from the University of Washington in 1931. She began her teaching career at various colleges, spending four years as a faculty member of Montana State College. She earned her Master of Arts in Institution Management, with a minor in education foundations, from Columbia University Teachers College in 1939. She went on to earn her PhD. from the same institution, in educational foundations, with minors in educational administration guidance, home economics education, and higher education in 1954. After graduating, she joined the college as an instructor. She then spent three years as a home economist for a San Francisco industrial firm that manufactured dehydrated vegetables for the armed forces. She researched and traveled with army and navy personnel throughout the United States. In 1946, she spent a year in the British Zone of Germany working with “displaced persons” with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. She earned her Doctor of Education degree, and then she joined the faculty of University of Minnesota, where she became Associate Professor of Home Economics. Dean Scholl was part of the Home Economics Committee of the National Project in Agricultural Communications, a life member of the American Home Economics Association and the American Dietetics Association, and part of the AHEA Public Relations Committee, among many other committees. She spent three years on the International Farm Youth Exchange selection committee, and was part of the 4-H Club Summer School. She was part of the Governor’s Committee for Children and Youth. She received an official Certificate of Commendation from the State of Oregon in 1956, as “official recognition and appreciation for a valuable suggestion which has been adopted and which is an outstanding contribution to the improvement of State service.” She served on the editorial board of the Journal of Home Economics, and was the president of the Oregon Home Economics Association. She was hired in 1956 for $10,000 per year She took sabbatical leave with half salary in 1963 for the purpose of travel and further study. She hoped to learn more about how Home Economics material influence in the field of social work, and saw an opportunity for “mutual exchange and understanding” between the fields. She resigned in 1964, at which point she was earning $15,750 per year. She was a member of the Episcopalian church and a Democrat.