Asa D. Smith, the first president of the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, wrote in 1873 that the college's planners "builded better than they knew." And they did, creating an institution that filled a need, as witnessed by an enrollment that grew from 10 students in 1868, the college's first year, to 1,000 in 1922, to over 12,000 today.

But there was also a certain shrewdness evident in the college's beginnings. The federal Morrill Act of 1862 granted large tracts of public land to each state, the sale of which could provide funds for a land-grant college. There was a catch, however: none of the money could be used for buildings—states had to provide their own.

And again, when Benjamin Thompson wrote his will in 1856, leaving his farm to New Hampshire for an agricultural college, he included a requirement that the state appropriate $3,000 annually for 20 years, to be used for equipping the new school. If New Hampshire didn't like the terms of the will, Thompson's estate would go to Massachusetts, or Michigan.

Behind these conditions was an understanding that it would take more than the vision of elected officials or the benevolence of one farmer to make a public college or a university thrive. A successful college would need students and their families to see the value of higher education, and educators who would dedicate their energy and their careers to expanding the minds of young men and women. It would need legislators and taxpayers to realize the importance of educating the state's youth regardless of their ability to afford tuition. And private donors who would see how gifts could benefit the lives of students, in particular, and the furtherance of knowledge in general.

It's this last piece that the University of New Hampshire seeks to address with its first major capital campaign, The Next Horizon. As the campaign begins this fall, the UNH Foundation's staff will be informing UNH alumni and friends how gifts can help students and the University in the future. Just as gifts to the University have opened doors for students and programs in the past.

Help in Hard Times

The life of professor emerita of history Marion James '40 is interwoven with the history of the University itself. The daughter of Professor Charles James, an internationally renowned chemist, she was literally born into the University community. Now comfortably retired after a long and distinguished career as a UNH history professor, it might seem as if her future was somehow predestined. But in fact she attended UNH during the Great Depression, a time when many students faced tremendous uncertainty about whether they would return for the next semester, much less graduate.

"King" James—so-called for his British accent—died in 1928, when his daughter was 10 years old. A year later, the stock market crashed, and when Marion James entered UNH in 1936, the country had not yet recovered. Her junior year, she received a $200 scholarship. The money went a long way—tuition in 1939 was $150 for in-state students, and room and board was typically $280. Dr. James recalls, "I was honored, and very glad to get it. It helped."

After UNH, an interest in Far Eastern literature led her to Harvard. With graduate degrees in both English and history, Dr. James substituted for a UNH history professor on sabbatical. The rest, as they say, is history. These days she is active as president of the Durham Historical Society, as an award-winning painter and a world traveler. Afghanistan, which she's visited five times, is especially close to her heart. "I love Afghanistan," she says, and nods her head, pleased. "The people are tough and independent."

Say someone would like to find out more about the writer Thornton Wilder. For students, faculty and staff at UNH, a biography is available in about a minute, give or take 10 seconds. Literature Online, one of dozens of online databases and indexes that Dimond Library subscribes to, can also—within seconds—produce the names of everything Wilder wrote. What about "The Skin of Our Teeth"? The database Lexis-Nexis will tell you a new musical version was Broadway-bound in December.

Welcome to the new age of scholarship: on the Internet. Serious scholars can now browse journals in which the bibliography and footnotes are linked to yet more scholarly publications. "It really enhances their ability to do research," says University Librarian Claudia Morner. Dimond Library's "Electronic Reference Area" allows users to access a vast array of information, from 9 million medical citations to thousands of journals and hundreds of newspapers. But Morner says there are two problems: the library should have dozens more of these databases, and they are expensive.

Having just finished a $19 million renovation and expansion which transformed Dimond Library from a cramped, dingy facility into an award-winning architectural showpiece, the library staff now seeks to build from within, acquiring additional books, journals and electronic resources. Electronic information is the wave of the future, says Morner. "Students and faculty expect us to have electronic resources," she says, part of the way people now learn.

Lots of people—lobstermen not the least among them—would like to know how many lobsters there are in the ocean. UNH marine reseachers would also like to know, to help prevent catastrophic depletion of the species. So UNH students devised an underwater time-lapse camera, attached it to a lobster trap, and set the apparatus off a beach in Rye, N.H. The resulting videos showed that only one out of every 10 lobsters near the trap went inside. Of those, nine out of 10 came back out.They call it LTV, for Lobster Trap Video, and Winsor Watson, professor of zoology and director of the Center for Marine Biology, says it may prove two things: that lobsters are territorial, i.e. the lobster with the most attitude was kicking the other lobsters out; and that lobster traps are not a very good way to assess lobster populations.

Watson (at right, with UNH students) not only researches the behavior of lobsters and horseshoe crabs but also the function of neurons in sea slugs. His work is part of an extensive marine science program at UNH that includes 41 faculty members from 11 departments, affiliated with three centers and one institute. Yet because of budget cutbacks, the University provides very little of what Watson calls "seed money" that scientists need to test new research ideas.

Last year, Leslie Hubbard '27 made a gift of $10 million, a UNH record, to the marine program. Some of that gift is being used in the Center for Marine Biology to support new faculty and graduate student research. "There's money now specifically for programs that hold promise," Watson says. "It's investment in the future."

Rumor has it that when a baby is born in Durham, the first thing the new parents do is go down to the UNH Child Study and Development Center and sign up on the waiting list. It's a fable, of course, but parents do recognize the center as a place where the best new child care theories and ideas are put into practice. And there is a long waiting list.

The center, a training site for UNH students and a research facility for faculty and students, is "school" for 130 pre-school children. The nursery school dates back to 1929, the full-day programs to 1988. For 18 of those years, Mary Jane Moran has helped guide the early childhood education of hundreds of children and the evolution of the center's "inquiry-oriented" approach. Moran, an assistant professor of family studies and associate director of the center, explains that the inquiry method presumes "children can be trusted to share in determining their course of study." If growing pumpkin seeds was slated for October, but moon rocks have captured the students' attention, well then, moon rocks it is.

This year, Moran was named the second recipient of the Rand-Stearns Endowed Professorship, named after the late Josephine Stearns '58 and the late Elizabeth Rand, director and teacher at the center from 1948 to 1973. Moran is using the stipend to initiate three new research projects to further refine the center's inquiry-oriented education. The payoff? "Children and teachers become learning partners, and as a result, are more passionate about their work together."

—Meg Torbert

A great university must push the boundaries of knowledge; introduce students to new ideas, challenges and opportunities; find the tools, explore the ideas, and develop the leaders that will make the future better than the present.

On Oct. 1 and 2, 1999, the University of New Hampshire will launch a fund-raising campaign dedicated to achieving these objectives. The goal of "The Next Horizon: the Campaign for the University of New Hampshire" is $100 million. That's about five times more than UNH has raised in any previous campaign, but UNH Foundation President Young P. Dawkins III is confident that the goal can be met.

"The University is at an exciting point in its development," Dawkins observes. "In recent years, UNH has been increasingly recognized as an exceptional institution. It's become a public university of choice for talented students; outside support for research has increased dramatically, to $60 million this past year; and many of our academic programs are achieving world-class distinction. Last year, Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine called UNH a 'public university to cheer about.' It really is, and more and more people are beginning to see it that way."

The name chosen for the campaign, The Next Horizon: the Campaign for the University of New Hampshire, reflects the philosophy behind it. "We are launching this campaign in the belief that the University is on the threshold of great opportunity and achievement," UNH President Joan Leitzel says. "We are positioned to be one of the very best public universities in the country."

• to make a UNH education available to talented students, regardless of family income;
  
• to recruit and retain outstanding faculty members;
  
• to strengthen selected academic programs of distinction;
  
• to provide modern technology and other essential learning tools to all members of the campus community;
  
• to maintain a campus environment that fosters discovery, creativity and community.
  

The overall goal of $100 million includes $28 million for student support, including scholarships and fellowships; $30 million for faculty support, including endowed chairs, term professorships, and faculty development programs; $30 million for "programs of distinction"—programs that are or have the potential to be at the top of their fields; and $12 million for academic resources, including instructional technology, library collections and services, and equipment.

"Our goals are ambitious: the pursuit of excellence is always a challenge," says Leitzel. "But the University's history is one of great endeavors boldly undertaken. UNH would never have become what it is without the vision, confidence and hard work of academic and volunteer leaders in the past. Now it is up to us—not only the administration and the faculty, but the thousands of students, alumni and friends who care about UNH—to face today's challenges and secure the resources the University needs to achieve its full potential."

The campaign is off to a good start even before it officially begins. According to Dawkins, the UNH Foundation has been gearing up for the official beginning of the campaign and has already lined up $35 million in gifts and pledges. Still, he emphasizes, "We are very early in the process. It's a long way to go to $100 million."

Dawkins sees this campaign not just as a mechanism for raising money, but also as a way to make the general public more aware of the accomplishments of UNH and its importance to New Hampshire. "We are seeking support from everyone with an interest in public higher education," he says. "We want to link as many people as possible to the future success of the University. This is an opportunity to focus on how strong the University is, and how proud people are to be associated with it."

—Maggie Paine