Celebrating 50 Years at Hartford

To address those needs, a branch campus of Rensselaer was established in Hartford for students who needed to balance their professional, academic, and personal lives. Fittingly, it was named the Hartford Graduate Center.

The Graduate Center began with 220 students, seven faculty members who relocated from Rensselaer to Connecticut (including Warren Stoker ’33, who served as director and later dean), and adjunct professors from local industry.

While it believed strongly in serving the individual student, the Hartford Graduate Center was committed to serving the business community as well. As a result, an additional campus was founded in Groton, Conn., to respond to the educational demands of Electric Boat, a subsidiary of General Dynamics.

In December 1996, trustees of both Rensselaer and the Hartford Graduate Center voted to transfer Hartford’s assets into a corporation controlled by Rensselaer. Under the new arrangement, Hartford had its own board of trustees, named by the Rensselaer president while the former Hartford board and new appointees assumed an advisory role.

In 1997, to celebrate the newly restored connection to Rensselaer, the Hartford Graduate Center was given its current name — Rensselaer at Hartford.

“We are proud to be celebrating 50 years of continued excellence in educating the working professional,” says John Minasian, vice president and dean of Rensselaer at Hartford. “Rensselaer at Hartford has a strong foundation on which to build a future Center for Technology Leadership, a learning laboratory dedicated to shaping our next world leaders based on an intellectual core of innovation, business sustainability, global enterprise management, and systems engineering leadership.”

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Rensselaer at Hartford