Other accomplishments during Brittain's administration included a doubling of Georgia Tech's enrollment, the first ROTC unit in the Southern United States, accreditation for the Institute by the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, and the creation of a new ceramic engineering department, building, and major that attracted the American Ceramics Society's national convention to Atlanta. Perhaps most significantly, Brittain is attributed with providing the vision and securing the finances to move Georgia Tech away from its roots as a teaching-oriented trade school and towards a new focus on science and technology research.