Quinnipiac University - History

History

Quinnipiac University was founded in 1929 by Samuel W. Tator, a business professor and politician. Judge Phillip Troup, a Yale College graduate, and Tator's wife, Irmagarde Tator, a Mount Holyoke College graduate, also played major roles in the fledgling institution's founding and nurturing; the former became its first president until his death in 1939; the latter, its first bursar.

Quinnipiac was conceived in reaction to Northeastern University's abandonment of its New Haven, Connecticut program at the onset of the Great Depression. Originally, Quinnipiac was located in New Haven and called Connecticut College of Commerce. On opening its doors in 1929, it enrolled under 200, and its first graduating class featured only eight students. At the time, it awarded only associate's degrees. In 1935, the college changed its name to Junior College of Commerce.

From 1943 to 1945, the college closed; nearly its entire student body was drafted into World War II. Upon re-opening, the college's enrollment nearly quadrupled to approximately 800 students.

In 1951, the institution was renamed Quinnipiac College, in honor of the Quinnipiac Indian tribe that once inhabited Greater New Haven. That same year, Quinnipiac began to confer bachelor's degrees. In 1952, Quinnipiac expanded rapidly, both physically and in terms of curriculum, relocating to a larger campus in New Haven, and also assuming administrative control of Larson College, a private women's college.

In 1966, after having outgrown its campus in New Haven, Quinnipiac moved to its current campus in Hamden, Connecticut's Mount Carmel section, at the foot of Sleeping Giant Park. Quinnipiac's relatively uniform red-brick architecture results from much of it being built at (or around) that time. During the 1970s, Quinnipiac began to offer master's degrees in a variety of disciplines.

Until the 1990s, Quinnipiac remained primarily a commuter college with only a regional reputation; however, that changed during the next decade. In 1995, the University of Bridgeport's law school migrated to Quinnipiac. That same year, the American Bar Association accredited Quinnipiac to award the Juris Doctor degree. The Quinnipiac School of Law Center was dedicated later that year as well. Also, during the mid-1990s, Quinnipiac's communication and business programs, respectively, built state-of-the-art facilities and attracted nationally known professors. Quinnipiac's Polling Institute was noted for excellence by several prominent journalistic outlets, and often cited during the 1998 and 2000 election campaigns.

On July 1, 2000, the school officially changed its name to Quinnipiac University—to reflect its relatively new breadth in academic offerings. That same year, Quinnipiac University received accreditation by AACSB.

Currently, Quinnipiac offers 52 undergraduate majors, 20 graduate programs, and a JD program. Its new medical school plans to admit students starting in 2013. Quinnipiac's Polling Institute often garners the university national media attention.

The university operates several media outlets, including a professionally run, commercial radio station WQUN, founded by journalist and Quinnipiac professor Lou Adler. The university also operates a student-run FM radio station WQAQ, which concurrently streams on the Internet. A student-run television station, Q30, can be viewed only on campus. Also, a student-produced newspaper, The Chronicle, established in 1929, publishes 2,500 copies every Wednesday.

Quinnipiac is home to one of the world's largest collections of art commemorating the Great Irish Famine. The collection is contained in the Great Ireland Hunger Museum just off the Mount Carmel Campus.