Ava Chadbourne graduated from the university in 1915 with a bachelor’s degree in education and a master’s in 1918. Her Ph.D. came from Columbia University in 1928. Her doctoral thesis: “The Beginnings of Education in Maine,” reflected her lifelong interest in the state’s educational progress. She began her work with 4-H clubs, did graduate work and later taught a quarter century in the College of Education until 1942. An excellent historian, she supervised many graduate degrees, including a number of published theses on the state’s educational history. Chadbourne herself also wrote widely.