University Of Hartford ISC

As an international student, you have access to a number of benefits and services at the International Center. We are here to ensure that you maintain your legal status while a student at UHart and will provide you with the necessary support for your success. The Center acts as the liaison between the University and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Service, the U.S. Department of State, embassies and consulates abroad, foreign governments, and international organizations. We also provide you with current information regarding compliance with DHS requirements, including student and exchange visitor status, travel, employment regulations and so much more. Personalized academic and non-academic counseling and referral is available and no appointment is necessary to speak with an advisor.The University’s roots go back to 1877 when one of the three founding schools, the Hartford Art School, opened. It was initially called the Hartford School for Decorative Arts, and was founded by prominent Hartford women Olivia Clemens, Elizabeth Colt, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mary Bushnell Cheney, and Susan Warner. Two music educators, Moshe Paranov and Julius Hartt, established the second founding school, the Hartt School of Music, now called The Hartt School A Civil War general named Charles Tudor Hillyer began classes at the YMCA in Hartford in what would become the original Hillyer College. In 1952, Samuel I. Ward gave Hillyer College the Ward School of Electronics, an electronics school to train technicians for a brand new industry at the time—television. The school is now part of the College of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture.With backing and encouragement from local community and business leaders, the schools came together in 1957 on a 150-acre stretch of farmland on Bloomfield Avenue known as the Gabriel farm, the last farm in Hartford. A new university had been born. Despite the founders’ differences in subject matter and teaching styles, they all believed in the importance of education and were dedicated to making it available to all, a commitment that still stands today. When Martin Luther King Jr. came to Hartford in 1959 as a speaker in a new University lecture series, the campus did not have an auditorium yet. Instead, he delivered his speech,  “The Future of Integration,” at Hartford’s Bushnell Memorial Hall. He met informally with students during the day and recalled a summer spent working in Connecticut in the nearby tobacco fields.The first academic building, University Hall, later named Hillyer Hall, opened in 1960. In 1963 and 1964, The Hartt School and the Hartford Art School moved into their respective buildings on campus. By the early 1960's, the University was already considering expanding its reach beyond Hartford. But students who lived further away needed housing. The first residence halls opened on the residential side of campus in 1967, followed by a student union and athletics facilities. A library and new cafeteria, University Commons, opened in 1971. Students soon learned the joys of sledding down snowy campus slopes on food trays. As the student body grew, more buildings sprang up on campus. From the original Hillyer College came the forerunners of today’s College of Arts and Sciences, the Barney School of Business, the College of Education, Nursing and Health Professions, and the College of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture. Early honorary degree recipients at the new University included African American contralto Marian Anderson, composer Aaron Copland, and poet Wallace Stevens, a Hartford resident.The University stepped into the 21st century with a new president in Walter Harrison, who quickly built rapport with students, has helped to transform UHart with a fundraising campaign that ushered in new buildings and programs along with a new campus spirit. Harrison’s fundraising campaign raised more than $175 million, paving the way for new buildings, studios, and athletic facilities as well as scholarships, endowed chairs, and faculty research. The campaign allowed him to pursue a new aspiration for the University—to achieve regional prominence and national visibility in the sciences, engineering, and technology. In keeping with this goal, the first building project connected to the fundraising campaign was the new Integrated Science, Engineering, and Technology Complex.UHart also built a new arts and technology complex at the Hartford Art School and a new dormitory, Hawk Hall, and its adjacent gathering place, Alumni Plaza. The two-story Renée Samuels Center at HAS provides a fresh facade for Taub Hall and studios for media arts and photography. In 2008, at the site of a historic Hartford car dealership designed 80 years earlier by pioneering industrial designer Albert Kahn, the Mort and Irma Handel Performing Arts Center opened. This 55,000 square foot state-of-the art facility has five dance studios, four theatre rehearsal studios, three vocal studios, and two black box theaters, and has become a vibrant new center for dance and theatre instruction and performances at one of the key gateways to the city of Hartford. The campaign also allowed the University to build its first on-campus baseball field and a new softball field, and to renovate the soccer and lacrosse facility.The University also opened another public school on its campus--the University High School of Science and Engineering --through another partnership between UHart and Hartford Public Schools. The high school initially opened temporarily at the former Hartford College of Women campus then moved into its new building on the UHart campus in 2009. Also during Harrison’s tenure, the University administration announced that it would close Hartford College for Women, and in 2006, the University established the Women’s Education and Leadership Fund (later renamed The Women's Advancement Initiative) to continue the traditions of HCW, namely to enhance the education of women; empower women to lead; promote women as scholars; and enrich the campus community and beyond. The fund provides scholarships for students and research grants for students, staff, and faculty.

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