Looking Back

In 1933, the year that Hitler came to power in Germany and Franklin D. Roosevelt started his first term, the Department of History was created at UConn. Fourteen years and one World War later, in 1947, that Department split into two, creating the new Department of Government and International Relations. After what a member of the Department, Curt Beck (1947-1992), calls considerable "soul searching," we adopted our current name of Political Science in 1959. The first MA in Government and International Relations was awarded in 1948 and the first Ph.D. in Political Science in 1963.

The Department was initially located in two small offices in the Francis L. Castleman Building. It then had temporary quarters in South Campus and the quadrangle, now occupied by the Faculty Alumni Center, before moving to the first two floors of the Henry Ruthven Monteith Building (where most of us had our first offices). Today, our offices are located in Susan V. Herbst Hall, which is named after the 15th president of UConn (2011-2019) and our political science colleague.

‘Rapid Expansion’

The birth of the Department was not an isolated event. Curt Beck says that it was in part a response to America’s post-World War II awareness as a world power and the intense interest in world affairs. But it was also part of the UConn’s most dynamic phase when new programs of instruction were added, many instructors hired, dormitories built, all to accommodate a rush of returning veterans, beneficiaries of the G.I. Bill of Rights, and an extraordinary number of students with immigrant family backgrounds for whom a college education was a great new opportunity.

According to the reflections, the Department’s rapid expansion and the caliber of its newly recruited faculty was largely due to George McReynolds, the first head of the Department. McReynolds had been a member of the Department of History before the war. During the war, he served in the Pacific as a naval officer. An expert on the Far East, he insisted that contemporary politics were sufficiently important to justify the creation of a separate department. McReynolds served until 1950 when he became dean of Arts and Sciences. He set a tone of quality through his appointments and encouragement of scholarship. Beck says his emphasis on international relations left a permanent mark.

G. Lowell Field, who joined the Department as head in 1952, contributed to the growth of the Department and the discipline, with an innovative approach to political development theories. In 1967, he was succeeded by Louis Gerson, known not merely for his scholarly contributions to the study of U.S. foreign policy under Truman and Eisenhower, but also for his efforts at expanding the expertise of the Department during his 10-year stewardship. David RePass was the department head from 1978-1983 followed by Larry Bowman, John Rourke, Richard Vengroff, Howard Reiter, Mark Boyer, and David Yalof. Today, our Department is headed by Oksan Bayulgen.

Here is a quote from Beck at the 35th anniversary celebration:

“Surviving 35 years does not entitle the Department to indulge in self-glorification. It is true this Department has outlasted Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter. The Department undoubtedly will survive the current age of doubt and pessimism. Thirty-five years only gives the Department the privilege to face the future knowing that it has been a factor in influencing the thoughts of other colleagues in a wide variety of fields and that it has opened the minds of young men and women to ideas they might not otherwise have had and encouraged them in activities from which future generations will benefit. Most importantly, contemplating the last 35 years should remind us that the enthusiasm that led McReynolds and others to start this Department must be rekindled. The issues of 1983 may differ from those of 1947, but the discipline of political science is needed even more now to resolve the perennial problems of political authority, justice, respect for law, and avoidance of international catastrophes.”

Moving Forward

Today, the relevance of our discipline could not be clearer. The world faces a whole set of crises and challenges, some new and some recurrent. Our field is central to making sense of these events around us and helping our students navigate these interesting times.

At the 40th anniversary, Beck continues his musings. He says, “so why are we celebrating our 40th anniversary in 1988? I suspect the main reason is that we feel good about ourselves. We are 40, which is a respectable, if not perfect, age. We are out of our adolescence and not yet senile.”

Our Department has grown and flourished over the years, thanks to the hard work and dedication of our faculty, staff, and students. In 1988, Beck wrote:

“A major asset in the Department’s development was a mutual tolerance of diverse approaches to the discipline. While there were occasional differences over the relative emphasis to be given to public administration or international relations, behaviorists, institutionalists, and historically oriented colleagues coexisted from the 40s to the present.”

We still have that diversity and a lot more of it today. And that diversity is our biggest strength.

Cheers to 75 years of excellence and to many more years of success ahead!