Challenge yourself to Tom’s Trivia!
See if you know as much as King of UConn Trivia and University Deputy Spokesperson Tom Breen ’00 (CLAS).
Scroll to the bottom to reveal the answers.
During an 1893 debate in the General Assembly, a legislator hostile to the development of a liberal arts curriculum at what was then Storrs Agricultural School mocked students with a term, which was then adopted by sports fans at rival schools. What was it?
A. The Singing Farmers
B. The Highfalutin Huskies
C. The Greco-Roman Yeomen
D. The Dairy Poets
In 2006, the buildings that comprise Charter Oak Apartments were renamed in honor of the first six students to graduate from Storrs Agricultural School. What names did they replace?
A. The counties of Connecticut
B. Early UConn presidents
C. The members of the first Board of Trustees
D. The New England states
What fall 1982 phenomenon, disrupting classes from Mirror Lake to the Student Union Mall, did University Senate members ask to have removed from campus?
A. Personal computers
B. Students playing loud music
C. The Sony Walkman
D. Roller skates
Branford House at UConn Avery Point was built by financier Morton Freeman Plant and designed by his wife, Nellie, who was trained in architecture at the Sorbonne. Plant was a philanthropist who supported many aspects of civic life around Groton and New London, including a minor league baseball team. What were they called?
A. The Freemen
B. The Planters
C. Morton’s Men
D. The Pointers
The Cupid Fountain at the Branford House gardens in 1917, before the property was sold at auction in 1938 to the state of Connecticut and used first by the Coast Guard and now UConn Avery Point.
Answers
- A. The New Haven legislator coined the term in response to the news that the senior class at Storrs had formed a Glee Club to provide musical entertainment at various campus events. Despite witticisms of this caliber, the General Assembly voted in 1893 for Storrs Agricultural School to become Storrs Agricultural College, including a modest expansion of the curriculum beyond what had previously been limited to agricultural courses.
- D. The six, three-story buildings now named Brown, Foster, Hoisington, Hough, Hubbard, and Thompson were originally named for the six states of New England.
- B. Students were apparently playing music especially loud in the early weeks of Fall 1982, with one faculty member bemoaning that “it has become modish for students to display their watts” and another lamenting the sounds from what he called “Radio Free McMahon.” Music from cars was apparently a particular annoyance, with members of the Senate asking UConn Police to prohibit “amplified advertising or music being played from a moving vehicle.” The Senate ultimately voted to take its concern to the Undergraduate Student Government.
- B. The New London Planters played in the Eastern League from 1913 to 1918, folding after the start of World War I and Morton Plant’s death. The 1916 team, which compiled an 86-34 record, was ranked as one of the 100 greatest minor league teams of all time by baseball historians Bill Weiss and Marshall Wright.
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