Marion Luther Brittain Sr. (November 11, 1866 – July 13, 1953[1]) was an American academic administrator and longest serving president of the Georgia Institute of Technology from 1922 to 1944.

[2] Brittain was born in Georgia and, aside from a brief stint at the University of Chicago for graduate school, spent most of his life serving the educational community there.

After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree from Emory College in 1886, Brittain worked his way up the ranks from principal of an Atlanta high school to superintendent of education for the entire state of Georgia.

In 1897, he gained local fame for his erudition after winning a contest held by the Atlanta Constitution in which he was able to identify the missing word from a passage taken from an obscure book on English literature.

[14] Other accomplishments during Brittain's administration included a doubling of Georgia Tech's enrollment,[1] 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.

[10][11] 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.

He was especially remembered for his dedication to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team, attending nearly every game including those taking place out of state.

The Dr. Marion Luther Brittain Sr. House, built in the Neoclassical Revival style and located at 1109 West Peachtree Street in Atlanta, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 23, 1993.