by Peter H. Congleton

Near the end of the Great Depression, and on the eve of the deadly 1938 hurricane, the newly appointed president of the Hillyer Institute, Alan S. Wilson, arrived in Hartford, Conn. He traveled there from his native Ohio with his wife, Mary, who was 8 months pregnant, and their daughter, Kate.

In a 1989 interview, Mary, who died in 1999, remembered those early days: "I was young, so I was willing to take that chance-with him. And we were never sorry.... I think perhaps in the back of Alan's mind he had the idea of a university for Hartford. I really think he did."

Through Alan Wilson's persistence and his family's forbearance, enrollment grew. But World War II brought new challenges, forcing Wilson to innovate to keep the college afloat. Because many young men had gone off to serve in the military, women took on what had been considered nontraditional roles in the workforce and filled the seats in night-school classrooms vacated by the men. Wilson saw this shift as an opportunity for his dream of a university for Hartford. Among other curriculum adaptations, he added the teaching of auto mechanics to women.

In his eulogy for Wilson in 1977, the second president of the university, Archibald M. Woodruff, said, "Alan Wilson's philosophy was that educational institutions existed to educate, and there was no inelegance attached to teaching useful material to people who could use it."

The GI Bill created the next opportunity for Wilson's dream. By 1950 enrollment at Hillyer had reached nearly 3,500 students. Wilson was, as Woodruff phrased it, "as resourceful in prosperity as he had been in adversity" and saved money for that day when a campus for a university for Hartford might become a reality. From those savings came the funds used in late 1955 to purchase the Gabriel property, the last large, undeveloped tract of land in the Hartford area, for the present-day campus.

Around the same time, the Hartt School of Music and the Hartford Art School shared a similar need for space. Mary recalled, "I think it was Alan's board, or maybe all three of the boards, decided they couldn't get anywhere separately. That they had to be an entire something to appeal to Hartford-to become a university.... It's thrilling to have been a part of it.... The university was planned on our dining room table. Night after night, he'd have all these plans, architects' plans and so forth, all laid out on the dining room table.... Alan had a dream. Step by step, he advanced it. Many good people, men and women, helped." The University of Hartford became a reality in 1957.

The Wilsons had done planning of their own. Each had an identical will listing a number of charitable organizations. These lists included the young University of Hartford, of which Wilson had been named vice chancellor. After his death, Mary and the children chose to accelerate her provision for the university by setting up a charitable gift that paid her an annuity for the rest of her life and guaranteed a remainder interest for the university. With the help and support of her children, John Wilson and Kate Wilson Snyder, she established the Mary and Alan Wilson Scholarship Fund in 1993. It was fully endowed upon Mary's death shortly after her 90th birthday. Kate then set up a similar gift annuity for the Wilson Scholarship Fund. She continues to benefit from that special connection to the university today, and the endowed scholarship fund is assured of future support in memory of her parents, who were so instrumental in the university's founding.

"My parents devoted much of their lives to making education accessible to everyone, first at Hillyer College and then at the University of Hartford," says Kate. "I wanted to provide student financial assistance in their memory and chose a gift plan that pays me a solid return, allowing me to build on their wonderful legacy."

Peter H. Congleton joined the University of Hartford as its new director of planned giving in June. He comes to the university from Groton School in Groton, Mass., where he was the director of planned giving since 1994. For more information on planning your future as well as the university's, contact him at 860.768.5201.