{"id":152041,"date":"2018-12-12T12:02:38","date_gmt":"2018-12-12T17:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=152041"},"modified":"2019-07-30T14:39:13","modified_gmt":"2019-07-30T18:39:13","slug":"right-president-right-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2018\/12\/right-president-right-time\/","title":{"rendered":"The Right President at the Right Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 1901, the future of what was then called Connecticut Agricultural College was very much in doubt. Attempts to introduce a liberal arts curriculum alongside agricultural studies had been met with stiff opposition from farmers, politicians, and the state\u2019s press, with the <em>New Britain Herald<\/em> editorializing that it was \u201cdangerous\u201d and \u201cinsidious\u201d to broaden the curriculum.<\/p>\n<p>Enter Rufus Stimson. Arriving as president in a tumultuous time, Stimson not only steadied the institution but helped it grow beyond anything the institution\u2019s founders had imagined. An accomplished public speaker with a gift for publicity, Stimson courted newspapers and lawmakers, inviting them to Storrs to tour the campus, and instituted the first summer classes in the school\u2019s history as a way of spreading the word about the college.<\/p>\n<p>By the time Stimson left in 1908, the student body had grown from 18 to 150, including students from as far away as India, Ecuador, and Germany; the campus had electric lighting and paved roads; the state appropriation to the school had increased from $5,000 to $25,000 a year; and the first brick dormitory on campus, Storrs Hall, had been built.<\/p>\n<p><em>Listen to the podcast (from episode 22):<\/em><\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-152041-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/History-Corner-22-Rufus-Stimson.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/History-Corner-22-Rufus-Stimson.mp3\">https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/History-Corner-22-Rufus-Stimson.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>For full episodes of the UConn 360 podcast, visit <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/uconn.edu\/uconn360-podcast\"><em>uconn.edu\/uconn360-podcast<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rufus Stimson, president from 1901 to 1908, helped Connecticut Agricultural College grow beyond anything the institution&#8217;s founders had imagined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":152062,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2141,2225,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1902],"class_list":["post-152041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcast","category-uconn-storrs","category-university-life","series-heard-here-uconn-360"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-01 05:34:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152041"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152071,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152041\/revisions\/152071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/152062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152041"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=152041"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=152041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}