Celebrating 75 Years of Innovation and Achievement
Utica College Turns 75
In 1946, Syracuse University and local officials launched Utica College. Although the College became a financially and legally independent institution in 1995, UC announced its final transition to full independence in the fall of 2008.
Today, Utica College offers more than 40 innovative undergraduate and graduate degree programs, world-renowned faculty, advanced research facilities, and real-world learning opportunities - with the personal attention and close-knit culture of a small, private college.
For 75 years, Utica College has empowered learners to achieve their career and life goals and create a future beyond their imagining.
“Out of this war rose a new demand for education, a demand nourished by a generous government offering the chance for an education to those who had served in its armed forces. To meet this demand and bring us here together today, the great University of Syracuse offered its resources to help establish Utica College.
Dean Winton Tolles
In this junction of government aid, University support, and civic cooperation, this college was born. It came into being as an answer to a dual need – the need for a place of higher education for the many young men and women who sought desperately for a place to attend college, and the need, long-felt, of the city for a permanent college with its educational and cultural advantages.”
—from Utica College Dean Winton Tolles’ Inaugural Convocation Address, delivered Sept. 30, 1946
75 Facts for 75 Years
With 75 years of innovation and achievement at Utica College, there's been plenty of milestones, big, small, and in between.
The last of three winners was picked in the TANGERINE-sponsored mascot contest, and left in the hands of the students. The winner for the week of November 9, 1952 is "The Pioneer," submitted by junior Paul Brown, taking its place with the "monkey" and the "Tangerine Braves" as the three possible choices for Utica College's mascot.
The Utica College Foundation, established in late 1952 to further the expansion and development of Utica College, showed its first signs of life when in late February 1953 a $500 contribution was granted to the foundation by former Utican, Miss Sophia A. Tavender, born in Utica and a resident of Boston for more than 45 years.
In the fall of 1966, a group of 20 black students came together to form United Students. Its mission: “to inform both black and white students of the Negro in this society and, hopefully, promote more humanitarian attitudes toward the Negro in America.” By spring of 1970, the group now known as the Black Students Union was recognized as an official campus organization.
In 1970, Utica College adds to its landscape a major piece of sculpture by the noted sculptor William Zorach. "Mother and Child" is placed on the lawn between the Library Annex and the Classroom Building.
In 2015, Utica College garners national headlines announcing a 42 percent reduction in tuition. As reported by The Washington Post, the bold move resulted in transfer applications rising 65 percent and up 10 percent for would-be first-year students.
