In a 50-room building that housed Connecticut's Civil War orphans, the University of Connecticut began in the fall of 1881 as the Storrs Agricultural School. From this beginning comes a rich history of change that continues through the billion-dollar program known as UConn 2000. In these pages are many previously unpublished and many long-unseen images that chronicle 120 years of that transformation. Each era in the university's history has seen growth and change: the 1890s, when faculty and administration squared off in the "the war of the rebellion"; 1908 to 1928, when President Charles L. Beach changed the curriculum and fought for "the needs of the college"; the 27-year administration of Albert N. Jorgensen, which saw a small college become a major research university; the 1960s, when, under Homer Babbidge Jr., the university made great academic advances while facing the sociopolitical challenges of the times; and today, when unprecedented changes are rebuilding and enhancing Connecticut's flagship university.

Author Mark J. Roy, Class of 1974, writes a regular series on the history of the university for the UConn Advance, the weekly faculty and staff newspaper. Drawing on that series, plus the manuscript and photographic collections of the University Archives in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, he takes us through each era in the growth and continuing development of UConn.