Tom’s Trivia

It’s Quiz Time

See if you know as much as King of UConn Trivia and UConn Director of News and Editorial Communications Tom Breen '00 (CLAS).

Scroll to the bottom to reveal the answers.

Tom's Trivia

Thomas Worthley, a UConn Extension professor of forest sustainability, is leading a project that involves distributing about 100 white oak seedlings — including some collected from the scion of the famous Charter Oak in East Haddam — across the state to highlight the important historic, economic, and ecological role of the white oak tree. A previous tree that came from the Charter Oak scion stood at UConn until 1938. What happened?

A: It was mistakenly chopped down by an overzealous forestry class
B: It was removed to make room for a new parking lot
C: It was uprooted during a hurricane
D: It caught fire during a student prank and had to be chopped down

An illustration by Peter Oumanski featuring textured linework of a tree weaving its way around UConn's Wilbur Cross, students and professors engaging in horticulture.

Worthley’s Oaks

Last fall, longtime UConn Extension professor Thomas Worthley collected many acorns from a few old white oak trees, most notably a scion of Connecticut’s legendary Charter Oak, which was planted at the Nathan Hale Schoolhouse in East Haddam in 1902. From those acorns, 100 newly germinated seedlings now sprout in black plastic pots under wood-and-wire frames behind the Horsebarn Hill Sciences Complex. Worthley is working with the nonprofit Connecticut Humanities to distribute these seedlings to community partners around the state to mark our country’s 250th anniversary. “Here I am,” says Worthley, “a white-haired gentleman. I’ll never see the tree that’s being planted today that will grow for another 250 years, but I care very deeply that it happens.”

Illustration by Peter Oumanski

In March 2009, for the first time, Homer Babbidge Library patrons could borrow what item — inside the library only?

A: A laptop computer
B: An iPod
C: A portable document scanner
D: A pair of headphones

In 2017, about 300 students at UConn Stamford moved into residential housing, the first time such accommodations were available at a regional campus since 1950, when a temporary campus established in the wake of World War II closed. In what town was that campus located?

A: Bridgeport
B: New Haven
C: Milford
D: New London

June 1995 saw two major UConn milestones. One was the signing into law of the UConn 2000 legislation that supercharged the University’s transformation into a top public university. What was the other?

A: The first residence halls connected to the internet via ethernet cable rather than modem
B: The debut of Husky Tracks ice cream
C: The first visit to the White House by a UConn basketball team
D: The closing of Fairfield Way to auto traffic

Though little noticed at the time, a 1976 event signaled the start of a momentous change at UConn. What was it?

A: Women’s basketball became Division I
B: The first student thesis was written on a computer
C: The last commencement ceremony was held at Hawley Armory
D: UConn dining halls stopped serving beer

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Further Reading:

Find more of this story by Jaclyn Severance with video by Izzy Harris.

UConn Today

Answers*

1: C After the famous hurricane of 1938 hit Storrs, two students made a survey of all the trees that had been brought down on campus, and counted 1,762 — including the ill-fated Charter Oak descendant.

2: A Ten Apple iBook laptops were made available to students and other members of the University community for three hours at a time according to an article in the UConn Advance.

3: D UConn Fort Trumbull, located within the city limits of New London, lasted from 1945 to 1950. Nicknamed “Siberia” because of its distance from Storrs, it included a bookstore, dining hall, radio station, and weekly campus newspaper called the Trumbull Tide.

4: C After defeating Tennessee 70–64 to claim its first national championship, the women’s basketball team made a June visit to the White House, where the team — minus Rebecca Lobo, who was playing in Italy with the USA national women’s team — met with President Bill Clinton. The men’s team had its first White House visit, also with Clinton, four years later.

5: B According to author John McPhee, the first student thesis at UConn written on a computer rather than a typewriter was composed by a pharmacy student using the University mainframe computer in 1976.

*Questions 1 and 5 are swapped in print. These answers match the digital edition. 

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