Throwback Thursday: A New Campus, a Magnificent Faculty, a Dynamic Leader

President Abram Brubacher and the faculty of the New York State College for Teachers. (Photo courtesy of University Archives)

ALBANY, N.Y. (January 26, 2017) — Today, we start a new feature, Throwback Thursday, where we display images from the University at Albany’s 173-year past.

The photo above shows the faculty and administration of the New York State College for Teachers, who are posed on the patio below Draper Hall, with Husted Hall seen in the background, in 1919. Draper and Husted, not yet named, were two of three buildings (the other Hawley) completed when the new campus, designed along the lines of Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia, opened in 1909. Richardson, Page and Milne (and the official namings) arrived in 1929.

In the center, fifth from the left, is Abram Brubacher, the second longest serving (1915-39) President of the institution at 24 years and 7 months (his predecessor, William A. Milne, edged him by 3 months). Possessor of a Ph.D. in Greek from Yale, his tenure was notable for the hiring of faculty who were performing scholarly research, the nearly doubling of courses offered to 260, and the acquiring of national and even international academic prestige as a college.

Brubacher’s given name was Abraham, a common name for Christians of German heritage. But he changed it to Abram because of extreme anti-German sentiment in America during World War I, which broke out in 1914. When the U.S. entered the fray in 1917, 117 students and two faculty members went off to war.

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