University of Hawaii at Manoa

Hawaiʻi Hall was the heart of the University of Hawaiʻi when it opened in 1912. It housed classrooms, administrative offices, and the campus's library. Entrance to UH Mānoa campus Founding The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa was founded in 1907 as a land-grant college of agriculture and mechanical arts establishing "the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts of the Territory of Hawaiʻi and to Provide for the Government and Support Thereof". [ 10 ] The bill Maui Senator William J. Huelani Coelho through the initiatives of Native Hawaiian legislators, a newspaper editor, petition of an Asian American bank cashier, and a president of Cornell University , [ 11 ] was introduced into the Territorial Legislature March 1, 1907 as Act 24, and signed into law March 25, 1907 by Governor George Carter , which officially established the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts of the Territory of Hawaiʻi under a five-member Board of Regents [ 11 ] on the corner of Beretania and Victoria streets (now the location of the Honolulu Museum of Art School). [ 10 ] The Board of Regents first selected J.E. Roadhouse of the University of California to head the new college in October 1907 but unfortunately had died before leaving Berkeley. [ 11 ] With classes scheduled to start in February 1908, the regents persuaded Willis T. Pope, vice principal of the Territorial Normal School, to head the college for its first semester. In Spring 1908, the regents appointed John W. Gilmore, professor of agriculture at Cornell University , as the college's first president. The Cornell connection would strongly influence the shaping of the new college, even today. [ 11 ] It officially became an institution of higher learning on September 14, 1908, when it enrolled 5 freshmen registered for a bachelor of science degree. Willis T.

Pope went on to become the Superintendent of Public Instruction in the Territory of Hawai’i from 1910 until 1913 and later a professor of botany and horticulture at the university. In September 1912 it moved to its present location in Mānoa Valley on 90 acres of land that had been cobbled together from leased and private lands and was renamed the College of Hawaii. [ 10 ] William Kwai Fong Yap, a cashier at Bank of Hawaii , and a group of citizens petitioned the Hawaii Territorial Legislature six years later for university status which led to another renaming finally to the University of Hawaiʻi on April 30, 1919, with the addition of the College of Arts and Sciences and College of Applied Science. [ 12 ] [ 11 ] In the years following, the university expanded to include more than 300 acres. In 1931 the Territorial Normal School was absorbed into the university, becoming Teacher's College, [ 12 ] now the College of Education.

The university continued its growth throughout the 1930s and 1940s increasing from 232 to 402 acres. The number of buildings grew from 4 to 17. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, classes were suspended for two months while the Corps of Engineers occupied much of the campus, including the Teacher's College, for various purposes. The university's ROTC program was put into active duty, which made the campus resemble a military school. When classes resumed on February 11, 1942, about half of the student and faculty body left to enter the war or military service. Students who returned to campus found classes cancelled due to lack of faculty and were required to carry gas masks to classes and bomb shelters were kept at a ready. [ 12 ] Once the war was over, student enrollment grew faster than the university had faculty and space for. In 1947, the university opened an extension center in Hilo on Hawaiʻi Island in the old Hilo Boarding School. In 1951, Hilo Center was designated the University of Hawaii Hilo Branch [ 12 ] before its reorganization by an act of the Hawaiʻi State Legislature in 1970. [ 13 ] By the 1950s, enrollment increased to more than 5,000 students, and the university had expanded to include a Graduate Division, College of Education, College of Engineering, College of Business Administration, College of Tropical Agriculture, and College of Arts and Sciences. [ 13 ] When Hawaiʻi was granted statehood in 1959, the university became a constitutional agency rather than a legislative agency with the Board of Regents having oversight over the university. Enrollment continued to grow to 19,000 at the university through the 1960s and the campus became nationally recognized in research and graduate education.

[ 13 ] In 1965, the state legislature created a system of community colleges and placed it within the university at the recommendations of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare 's report on higher education in Hawaii and UH President Thomas H. Hamilton. [ 11 ] By the end of the 1960s, the University of Hawaiʻi was very different from what it had since its beginning. It had become larger and with the addition of the community colleges, a broad range of activities extending from vocational education to community college education, which were all advanced through research and postdoctoral training. [ 13 ] The university was renamed the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa to distinguish it from other campuses in the University of Hawaiʻi System in 1972. [ 14 ]