A University for Hartford
At 52 years of age, the University of Hartford is young as universities go. Yet its roots go back more than 130 years, when Hartford city residents with famous last names like Stowe, Clemens, and Colt founded the Hartford Society for Decorative Art. That society later evolved into the Hartford Art School, one of the three founding colleges incorporated as the University of Hartford in 1957.

What is known today as The Hartt School was formed in the 1920s by two well-known but very different personalities. Julius Hartt came to Hartford in 1906 as a musician and teacher. More suited for scholarship and musical performance than entrepreneurship, Hartt found his alter ego in the dynamic Moshe Paranov. Together they formed the music school that would bear Hartt’s name.

The original Hillyer College sprang up from evening courses offered to young men at the YMCA of Hartford in 1879. By 1947, Hillyer Junior College became Hillyer College and separated from the Y. Samuel I. Ward, a Hartford industrialist, gave his electronics school to Hillyer in 1952. The school was later renamed the Ward School of Technology.

This early Hillyer College would eventually be divided up, reemerging as early versions of four of the University’s present schools and colleges: the School of Business Administration (now Barney School of Business), the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Education (now the College of Education, Nursing and Health Professions), and the College of Engineering (now the College of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture.)

A Full-Scale University Campus
The Hartford Art School, the Hartt School of Music, and Hillyer College each had something to offer to a merger. After several years of negotiations among the three schools, the University of Hartford was chartered on Feb. 21, 1957. Vincent Brown Coffin was chosen as the first chancellor in 1959. He was followed by Chancellor Archibald Woodruff in 1967, and Presidents Stephen Joel Trachtenberg in 1977, Humphrey Tonkin in 1989, and Walter Harrison in 1998.

The University’s first building—today’s Hillyer Hall—opened in 1960. In 1966 the board of regents added the College of Basic Studies. Renamed Hillyer College in 1992 in honor of the University’s founding school, it offers an intensive, two-year program in the liberal arts, combined with personalized attention and strong academic support services and advising.

In 1967, after other academic buildings had opened, the University welcomed its first on-campus residents. In succeeding years the University grew in both size and stature, adding a dramatic U-shaped complex, the Harry Jack Gray Center, which encompasses classrooms, auditoriums, an art gallery, a restaurant, a bookstore, and Mortensen Library.

In 1991, Hartford College for Women (HCW) affiliated with the University. HCW has been transformed into the Women’s Education and Leadership Fund, which supports women’s programming and curricula across the entire University. HCW’s Career Counseling Center, now known as the Center for Professional Development, continues to serve the needs of both women and men in the community.

Continuing to Grow
In just the past 10 years, the University’s endowment has grown 82 percent, from $62 million to $113 million, due in large part to the highly successful Campaign of Commitment. The University now has more than 370 endowed scholarships and 150 endowed funds.

The physical campus has also been transformed by the campaign’s dramatic results in fundraising, as the University embarked on several ambitious building projects in the last decade.

The  $34 million ISET complex opened in 2005, marking the start of a new era in science, engineering, and technology education at the University.
 
The Renée Samuels Center opened in January 2007, providing the Hartford Art School with new space for its photography and media arts programs.

Hawk Hall, a five-story residential facility for first-year students, and its adjacent Alumni Plaza, a new outdoor gathering place for students, were inaugurated in 2007.

The beautiful new Mort and Irma Handel Performing Arts Center, a 55,000- square-foot, state-of-the-art facility for students at The Hartt School, opened in 2008. Located at the corner of Albany Avenue and Westbourne Parkway in the north end of Hartford, the stunning Handel Center is the University’s most visible representation of its commitment to the community.

Community Engagement
It seems fitting that an institution forged by the community should be an integral part of that community. Hartt’s Community Division, which provides music, dance, and theatre instruction to more than 4,000 individuals of all ages every year, is one example. Another is the University’s Division I athletics program, which draws thousands of Hawk supporters to campus. Hartford now participates in 18 intercollegiate sports as a member of the America East Conference.

The University is host to two public magnet schools—an elementary school and a high school concentrating in science and engineering. This kind of community engagement was what community leaders had in mind when they created the University of Hartford in 1957.

A 21st-Century University
Today’s University of Hartford has surpassed the founders’ original but modest plans for a local university in Hartford, becoming instead a vibrant and growing institution that draws 7,400 students from 45 states and 49 countries. The University of Hartford has become a university for the world.