November 2007 Compiled and produced by the Institutional Advancement Donor Relations Office. Articles are reprints from University publications produced Building on Success during the last year. Year in Review - Highlights from the past year University Mission At the University of Hartford we provide a learning environment in which students may transform themselves intellectually, person- ally, and socially. We provide students with distinctive educational experiences that blend the feel of a small, residential college with an array of academic programs and opportunities characteristic of a large university. Through relationships with faculty and staff dedicated to teaching, scholarship, research, the arts, and civic engagement, every student may prepare for a lifetime of learning and for personal and professional success. University Raised A Year to Remember $15.6 Million in FY 07 Special points of interest: It gives me great pleasure to tell you about the exceptionally successful 2007 • President Harrison’s letter to the future fiscal year at the University of Hartford. • Commencement 2007 photos Thanks to your generosity, there was a significant increase in contributions. The • Deans’ messages amount raised was $15.6 million, 13.9% • Faculty and Staff news over the prior year and 39.2% over the year before. More than 8,700 alumni, • 2007 Anchor Awards faculty, staff, and friends participated. • Fall weekend Those of you who frequent the campus • Campus new and improved facilities have surely taken note of the stunning On Feb. 21, 1957, Gov. Abraham recent additions, including Hawk Hall, our • Hartford Hawks Ribicoff signed the bill granting a five-story, 208-bed residence for first- • Looking forward charter to the University of Hartford. year students; athletics fields; and the • List of Named Scholarships Looking on were four University Renée Samuels Center at the Hartford Art and Endowments founders (l-r) John G. Lee, director School. Exciting projects taking shape of research, United Aircraft Corp.; include the Mort and Irma Handel Per- Alfred C. Fuller, chairman of the forming Arts Center and the University High School of Science and Engineering. board, The Fuller Brush Co.; Mrs. T. Yet what is not as visible is what has Merrill Prentice, and Rep. George been at our core since the University’s Schwolsky. Heilpern photo. founding a half-century ago: transforming the lives of students. Fall Weekend, which combines As we come to the end of our yearlong Homecoming and Parents Weekend, celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of took on an added dimension this year the University, we look forward to con- as the culmination of the University’s tinuing success and maintaining the per- year-long celebration of its 50th sonal attention and high-quality stan- anniversary. President Walter dards that are the hallmark of a Univer- Harrison and Paul Sittard '85, sity of Hartford education. a University regent and president of the Alumni Association, unveiled an We are grateful for your loyalty and your elegant brass “H” embedded in a generous support of the University of circle in the middle of Alumni Plaza. Hartford. The “H” is a gift to the University from Don Rizzo, Vice President President Harrison. for Institutional Advancement President Harrison’s Message to the Future (Time Capsule Letter from President Harrison to future students, faculty and staff of the University in 2057- October 19, 2007) To the students, faculty, staff, and friends of the University in 2057: I send you greetings from 2007 on the 100th anniversary of the University of Hartford. While I will not be with you for this very joyous occasion, I am sure many of our current students will be active and loyal alumni, and many of our cur- rent faculty and staff will be among you to celebrate how the University has grown and changed since this beautiful autumn day in 2007, as I write this letter. They’ll be able to reflect on my descriptions of our world and the University, and will be able to tell you much more clearly than I can what the world was like here in the first decade of the 21st century. We live in a dynamic, exciting, and increasingly challenging world in 2007. Technology has changed our world rapidly, but I trust what we think of as technological marvels (cell phones, flat screen televi- sions, wireless laptop computers, and the like) will seem almost prehistoric by your standards. We sense that technology has made our world smaller, and aided greatly in its development. We are in- creasingly aware that we live in a world where national borders are less important, where we see our- selves more connected and more dependent on each other. At the same time, we in the United States are bogged down in an unpopular war in Iraq and engaged with growing fundamentalism and terrorism all over the world. I believe this fundamentalism to be a backlash against faster and faster progress made possible by technology, but I am opti- mistic that by 2057 the world will be a better and more peaceful place—and even more internationally connected. You may be the judge of that. In 2007 we in the United States live at a time when a growing understanding of the differences between peo- ple is breaking down the last barriers of prejudice based on race, religion, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. We are learning to celebrate and learn from each other. Both these trends—growing international awareness and the celebration of the diversity of human beings—are important characteristics of the University of Hartford in 2007. We have a student body of 7,308 and a faculty and staff of about 1,500. Our students come from almost all of the 50 states and 60 different countries. About 25% of our student body is people of color, and about 4% is international. About 30% of our student body is Jewish. Our student body is now about half men and half women, although the percentage of women in the student body here and nationally has in- creased dramatically over the past decade or two. We are very proud in 2007 of the dynamic growth and intellectual energy of the University. The Hartt School and the Hart- ford Art School vibrate with the energy of the performing and visual arts and stand geographically and creatively at the center of our University. The College of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture is catapulting the University forward as a center of science, engineering, and related disciplines. The liberal arts flourish in the College of Arts and Sciences and Hillyer College, as they have since our founding, and the professional schools—the Barney School of Business and the College of Education, Nursing and Health Professions—continue to prepare students for leadership in both the private and not-for-profit sectors. We are a vibrant residential university (about 3,700 students live on campus), and as we bury this capsule we also dedicate our newest residence hall, Hawk Hall, just to its east. We think Hawk Hall is the finest residence hall we have ever built, and Alumni Plaza, under which this time capsule sits, will become the center for first-year student life on campus. Were we right? We love our wooded campus with the Hog River running gently (usually gently) through it. We are proud of our athletic teams, and during these years in the early part of the 21st century, our women’s basketball team has emerged as a powerhouse among universities our size. We have recently opened new athletic fields for soccer, lacrosse, softball, and baseball. How have they held up—if at all? In this decade we have opened two magnet schools—the University of Hartford Mag- “a private University net School and the University High School of Science and Engineering. We are, in 2007, the only private university with two public schools on its campus. We’re very proud of with a public purpose” that, and see these schools as symbols of the University’s vital connection with the Greater Hartford community. We are proud to be a private university with a public pur- - President Walter Harrison pose. We feel that we have come a long way since the University’s founding in 1957. We have spent this year celebrating the University’s fiftieth anniversary, and we are sure you will be celebrating the 100th anni- versary just as joyfully. As we look back on our first fifty years, we see how much we have grown and changed. You will look over what we see as the next fifty years with the same sense of wonder. I hope what is great about the University—our intellec- tual excitement and the wonderful spirit of our faculty, staff, students, and alumni—continues to distinguish it, just as I hope the energy and creativity of those who come after us change and improve what we have done. We have placed in this time capsule items that we feel represent the life of the University in 2007. We hope you find these interesting manifestations of what life was like in 2007. I personally hope you find some of them amusing and primitive! That will mean that the world will have changed for the better. I hope the University will continue to be distinguished by a sense of freedom and justice for all of humankind, and I hope some of our great traditions—like painting the anchor and gathering on the campus green for Commencement—will continue to thrive. Mostly, I hope and trust that all of you will have made this great university an even better place to learn and live. GO HAWKS! Page 2 Year in Review—November 2007 University Celebrates Its 50th Commencement—Sunday, May 20, 2007 “Remember, there are those who make sity's 50 graduating classes took things happen, those who watch what part in the Commencement pro- happens, and those who ask, what hap- cession.