Browse Exhibits (5 total)

Like Penny Lewis and Robbie Lieberman argued, student anti-war protests did not only occur at elite, urban colleges and universities.  As a state university located in a rural setting, the University of Rhode Island was the site of widespread protest during the late 1960s and early 1970s.  Protests against the Dow Chemical Company, the CIA, the bombing of Cambodia, and an honorary degree granted to President Lyndon Johnson in 1967 all had roots in American involvement in Vietnam.  

Due to its status as a land-grant college, the University of Rhode Island was also particularly suited for debates over the relationship between college students and the military.  The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 had required any college or university that received its funds develop a military science program.  URI (then Rhode Island State College) had supplemented this program by starting a chapter of the Reserve Officer Training Corps during the first World War.  

During the course of the Vietnam War, widespread debate occurred across campus concerning whether the ROTC program should be continued or dismantled.  While newspaper coverage of this debate only occasionally mentioned the Vietnam War, it seems improbable that concerns over the continuation of the ROTC program would have been so contested at a different time.  Both students and faculty members invested valuable time and energy into this discourse.    

After a discourse that spread across multiple years, URI decided to keep its ROTC program.  However, this decision was made by a student vote, after the Faculty Senate decided they were unwilling to make the final decision on this matter.

The 1950s had been a period of immense growth for the University of Rhode Island, which received its university status in 1951.  Following the return of American soldiers from World War II and the passage of the G.I. Bill in the mid-1940s, the campus and student body expanded rapidly.  The housing crisis became so critical that Quonset hut colonies were established on campus to provide temporary housing for the influx of students.  With the postwar boom, new buildings were constructed on campus, including Memorial Union, the Frank W. Keaney Gymnasium, Pastore Chemical Laboratory, and Woodward Hall.

With large building projects continuing in the 1960s (particularly with the addition of many new housing buildings), the student body rapidly expanded, a growth that perhaps contributed to the instability of the second half of the decade.  Dr. Werner Baum served as university president from 1968 to 1973.  Newspaper coverage of the events at URI during the late 1960s reveals that President Baum struggled with maintaining control of the college campus.  Facing massive upheaval that culminated in student protests against the war, class boycotts, teach-ins, and a student takeover of the administration building, he often failed to receive the respect and cooperation of URI students and faculty.