for a professorship at Peabody Normal School. These events were commemorated when a new residence hall was dedicated in honor of Sears in 2008 and a commission on the status of women was founded to support the advancement of women's education at the institution in the 1990s.
=== 1921–1957: Teaching college, post-WWII expansion ===
By 1921, the school had grown to the point that it began to offer four-year bachelor's degrees. As a result, it was renamed "Mankato State Teachers College". The original Old Main building was destroyed in a fire in 1922 and a new building was completed on April 4, 1924. Enrollment dipped during World War II and the college refocused its extension programs on providing education to members of the Works Progress Administration and Naval Corps.
Clarence L. Crawford became college president in 1946. He held the position for 20 years, overseeing and promoting tremendous growth of the college from approximately 400 students at the time of his arrival to about 14,000 when he retired in …
