Happy Birthday USU

Utah State University is turning 118 years old in March, and the university has much to celebrate. It has transformed itself from a small, agricultural college into one that is nationally and internationally recognized for its many research endeavors.

Utah State was founded in 1888 and was originally called the Agricultural College of Utah. The institution began teaching classes to a handful of students in 1890. The “AC” was created through the Morrill Act of 1862 and was established as Utah’s land-grant institution, a charter that has led to the institution’s groundbreaking research.

 

In 1888 students could choose from five majors or career options, while today’s students select from 230 courses of study offered in 45 departments housed in seven colleges: Agriculture; Business; Education and Human Services; Engineering; Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences; Natural Resources; and Science.

 

Here are a few highlights from the past 118 years:

 

 

In March of 1888, after the Utah Territory received funding for an agricultural college, the university’s trustees recommended that USU be located on a 75-acre farm in Providence. When negotiations began for the property, there were various complications and it was decided to locate USU on a 100-acre piece of land on the Logan bench. Today, USU occupies 7,000 acres, 400 of which are at the original campus site. USU also has three branch campuses and Extension offices in all of Utah’s 29 counties.

 

 

On April 16, 1889, USU Trustees and Utah Territorial Governor Caleb G. West chose the spot where Old Main sits today. It is the oldest building on campus and the oldest academic building still in use in the state of Utah. The governor picked the location so Old Main Tower would be located due east of Logan’s Seventh Street – today’s Fifth North. The tower doesn’t quite line up. The engineers and surveyors of the time could have used some help from what would become USU’s College of Engineering, one of the top-ranked programs in the Intermountain region.

 

 

On March 8, 1888, the Agricultural College of Utah became the land-grant college in the Utah territory. The name was later changed to the Agricultural College of Utah, and in 1957 the institution became a university, Utah State University.

 

 

When classes began in 1890-91, the college enrolled 139 students – 106 men and 33 women. The fixed entrance fee for Utah State was $5 per year. Today, USU is still a bargain was named among the best values in the country, according to the May/June 2004 issue of Consumer's Digest. The magazine rated Utah State as the sixth least expensive university in the country in relation to educational quality. The magazine picked the colleges and universities that offer the most academic value per dollar, and the research was conducted among the best 200 public and private colleges.

 

 

USU was formally dedicated on September 4, 1890, and opened the next morning for instruction. A faculty of nine taught students in the only portion of Old Main that was completed at the time, the south wing. Today, USU has nearly 800 professors and more than 150 buildings on campus, providing classroom space, student housing and work facilities.

 

 

The first dormitory on the USU campus was completed in 1891 and housed both men and women, and a very watchful matron (that’s forward thinking for a university that until the late 1970s, didn’t offer co-ed dorms on campus). The dormitory was closed in 1909 and remodeled to become the home for the School of Domestic Science. Today, there are more than 20 options for on-campus housing. In 2007, the new Living-Learning Center will open on the brow of Old Main Hill and will house 500 students.

 

 

The university’s first president, Jeremiah W. Sanborn, originally had planned to live in a five-room apartment in the south wing of Old Main. Instead, he moved into a model farmhouse on Old Main Hill that he designed for teaching of domestic science. Current USU President Stan L. Albrecht and his wife, Joyce, reside in the President’s Home located northeast of Aggie Village and the USU Trailer Park. The house, built in 2002, was first home to USU’s 14th President, Kermit L. Hall, and his wife, Phyllis.

 

 

In the late 1800s, USU formed an almost separate village away from Logan, and the institution’s second president, Joshua H. Paul, wrote that he kept a buggy in the barn and tried to get to downtown Logan at least once a week. By 1912 that all changed as the campus and downtown were firmly connected by a trolley. In 2005, most students live on, or around, campus, but for those who don’t, there are many time-saving inventions to aid the journey to campus, including automobiles and local bus service. For those living farther away, distance education classes are offered at various locations around the state.

 

 

When land-grant schools were established, Congress stipulated that the schools provide military training to students. USU established military training programs very early, and in 1916 it became one of the select colleges chosen as original sites for Reserve Officer Training Corps programs. During World War I, USU’s campus was transformed into a military training facility. During World War II, USU saw increased activity as well, training radio operators, engineers, mechanics and pilots. After the war, USU’s ROTC program became one of the premiere programs in the nation. In 1948, the program had 2,200 cadets enrolled — that was 95 percent of all eligible males at the school. That same year, USU was granted more than 700 slots for commissioning officers. No other school in the nation, except West Point, commissioned as many officers as USU. During the ensuing years, needs changed, and the Army ROTC program was closed in 1997. Soon recognizing the continuing need for well trained commissioned officers, the Army agreed to re-evaluate the situation, and in 2001 the program was restarted. In 2006, USU includes programs in Army and Air Force ROTC.

 

 

On November 7, 1901, a special meeting of the faculty adopted Royal Blue and White as the college colors. The name Aggie had a more informal beginning, with the first athletic teams called “The Farmers.” Aggies, a contraction of Agriculturalists, was first used in the late 1890s, though as early as 1916 the local paper called the various athletic teams “Big Blue” – an apparent reference to the Blue Ox of Paul Bunyan stories.

 

 

In November 1902, the first issue of Student Life was published. Then a quarterly magazine, it was first issued in tabloid format in 1908. The name was changed to The Statesman in 1978, but the paper, the oldest continuously issued student publication in Utah, is still printed on a tri-weekly basis.

 

 

In 1909, the first senior class gift was an “A” placed on the west side of Old Main tower. The “A,” now on all four sides of the tower, can be seen throughout the valley, especially at night when it shines white. For special occasions and athletic wins, the “A” shines blue. The classes of 1914 and 1915 installed a set of hand-played chimes, not replaced until 1978 with the installation of the Frances Winton Champ Carillon Bells, which can be heard around campus on the hour and at every quarter hour thereafter.

 

 

In the early days of the university an annual clean-up day involved the entire student body and faculty providing the manual labor necessary to maintain the university. Agathon, for years a spring celebration, was marked with construction of new sidewalks around campus, sidewalks built by the students themselves. Many a brass or marble plaque still sits in walks around campus indicating the walk dates from “A-Day” in a particular year. Today, students still celebrate “A-Day” with service, and many become “True Aggies” by kissing at midnight on the “A” on the west side of the Quad.

 

 

Did you know that Southern Utah University in Cedar City and Snow College in Ephraim once considered themselves Aggies? The two institutions were branch campuses until 1966. Coincidentally, during USU’s first years, the institution survived three attempts to consolidate it with the University of Utah. Today, USU is considered one of the flagship research institutions in the state alongside the U.

 

 

While the arts may be a staple in today’s general education requirements, it was not so in the university’s early days, according to Robert Parson, university archivist at USU. “The arts were extracurricular, we were an agricultural college and that is what studies were focused on,” said Parson. But that didn’t stop the students. In December of 1895, the first dramatic performance, “The Galley Slave,” was performed in Old Main by a group of students. It wasn’t until 1911 that a night of one-act plays was presented by an English class under a professor’s instruction. Since that time numerous students have focused their studies on the performing arts. The USU Theatre department and its students produce and perform in 12 to 15 productions a year on campus and at the Caine Lyric Theatre in historic downtown Logan.

 

 

Since Old Main opened its doors, the Main Auditorium was the scene for plays, operas, vocal performances and concerts, a function not completely ended until the late 1980s. Things have come a long way since the “The Little Theatre” in Old Main housed the drama and speech department in the university’s early years. With the announcement of the Caine School of the Arts in fall of 2005 the university now has a collaborative program that adds to the visibility and prominence of existing arts programs on campus. The program is built from a community of artists, teachers, students and patrons from several arts-related areas and the community. The 20,000-square-foot Manon Caine Russell Kathryn Caine Wanlass Performance Hall is the centerpiece of the school and features a 400-seat hall, a stage for up to 22 performers and a lobby with glass windows overlooking a new plaza.

 

 

Before 1930, the library occupied any place that was available. It started on the first floor of the south wing of Old Main and was moved in 1893 to the north wing, and then to the second floor of the tower wing, directly over the President’s office. Not until 1930 was a space specifically designed for a modern day library operation – what is now the west front of the Merrill Library built in 1963. The new Merrill-Cazier library opened its doors in September 2005 and features an automated storage and retrieval system, more than 30 group study and project rooms, a 50-seat café, multimedia suites for digital audio/video production and an expansive Information Commons that houses 150 computers. The old Merrill Library is slated for demolition in Spring 2006.

 

 

While the Aggies are known for agriculture, by 1956 the university shifted and began to define research to include all scholarly and creative endeavors including engineering, business, education, biological science and the arts. Today, USU is well-known for its research and expertise in the areas of land and water, space, human services and the arts.

 

 

 

1. Jeremiah Wilson Sanborn (May 17, 1890 – May 31, 1894) was born in New Hampshire, graduated from Cornell and taught agriculture at Dartmouth and University of Missouri. He originally came to Logan as director of the Agricultural Experiment Station.

 

2. Joshua H. Paul (June 1, 1894 – April 25, 1896) was born in Salt Lake City, studied and taught at the University of Utah, was associate editor of the Salt Lake Herald newspaper and was president of Brigham Young College.

 

3. Joseph M. Tanner (April 28, 1896 – June 10, 1900) was born in Payson, Utah, and graduated from Brigham Young Academy. He was president of Brigham Young College before going to law school at Harvard and practicing law in Salt Lake City.

 

4. William J. Kerr (June 11, 1900 – March 26, 1907) was born in Richmond, Utah. He served as principal of schools in Smithfield, Utah, before becoming a teacher at Brigham Young College and University of Utah. He was president of Brigham Young College.

 

5. John A. Widtsoe (March 27, 1907 – February 16, 1916) was born in Norway. He graduated from Brigham Young College and Harvard. He received a doctorate from the University of Goettingen and studied at Zurich Polytechnicum. He was director of the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station and of the School of Agriculture at Brigham Young University.

 

6. Elmer George Peterson (February 17, 1916 – June 30, 1945) was born in Plain City, Utah. He graduated from Utah State, studied at University of Chicago and received his doctorate from Cornell. He taught at Oregon State Agricultural College and was director of Extension at the Agricultural college of Utah.

 

7. Franklin Stewart Harris (July 1, 1945 – June 30, 1950) was born in Benjamin, Utah. He graduated from Brigham Young University and obtained a doctorate from Cornell. He was director of the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station, then president of Brigham Young University for more than 20 years.

 

8. Louis Linden Madsen (July 1, 1950 – April 25, 1953) was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He graduated from Utah State and received a doctorate from Cornell. He did research at Columbia, Cornell, Michigan State and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He was head of animal husbandry at Utah State.

 

9. Henry Aldous Dixon (August 8, 1953 – December 3, 1954) was born in Provo, Utah. He graduated from Brigham Young University, received a master’s at the University of Chicago and an education doctorate from the University of Southern California. He was superintendent of Provo Schools and president of Weber College.

 

10. Daryl Chase (December 3, 1954 – June 30, 1968) was born in Nephi, Utah. He graduated from the University of Utah and received master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of Chicago. He was dean of students at Utah State and director of the Branch Agricultural College in Cedar City. During his tenure Utah State Agricultural College became Utah State University.

 

11. Glen L. Taggart (July 1, 1968 – June 15, 1979) was born in Lewiston, Utah. He graduated from Utah State and earned his doctorate at the University of Wisconsin. He worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Office in 38 countries. He was dean of International Studies and Programs at Michigan State University, and served two years as chancellor of the University of Nigeria.

 

12. Stanford Cazier (June 15, 1979 – June 30, 1992) was born in Nephi, Utah. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Utah and his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin. At USU he was head of the history department, vice provost and assistant to the president. He was president of California State University at Chico.

 

13. George Emert (July 1, 1992- December 31, 2000) was born in Tennessee. He received a master’s from Colorado State University in zoology and a doctorate from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in biochemistry and nutrition. He came to USU from Auburn, where he was executive vice president for eight years.

 

14. Kermit L. Hall (January 1, 2001 – January 31, 2005) was born in Ohio. He received a master’s from Syracuse University, a doctorate from the University of Minnesota and a law degree from the Yale University Law School. Prior to coming to USU, he was the chief academic officer at North Carolina State University and the dean of the College of Humanities and executive dean of the College of the Arts and Sciences at Ohio State University. He currently serves as the president of the State University of New York Albany.

 

15. Stan L. Albrecht (February 1, 2005 – current) was born in Wayne County, Utah. He received a master’s and doctorate from Washington State University in sociology. While at USU Albrecht served four years as executive vice president and provost, prior to which he was dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. He has served in a number of professional assignments, including membership on the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment Panel on Alternatives for Basing the MX missile and as a member of the U.S. Department of Interiors Minerals Management Service Science Advisory Committee.