UNH Presidents
Visit the archived Web site of J. Bonnie Newman, interim president of UNH 2006-2007.
Visit the archived Web site of Ann Weaver Hart, president of UNH 2002-2006.
Visit archived Web site of Joan Leitzel president of UNH 1994-2002.
Past President's of the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts and the University of New Hampshire. Read about the Presidents.
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| 1866-1877 Asa D. Smith |
1893-1903 Charles S. Murkland |
1903-1912 William D. Gibbs |
1912-1916 Edward T. Fairchild |
1917-1927 Ralph D. Hetzel |
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| 1927-1936 Edward M. Lewis |
1937-1944 Fred Engelhardt |
1944-1947 Harold W. Stoke |
1948-1950 Arthur S. Adams |
1950-1954 Robert F. Chandler |
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| 1955-1961 Eldon L. Johnson |
1963-1971 John W. McConnell |
1971-1974 Thomas N. Bonner |
1974-1979 Eugene S. Mills |
1980-1983 Evelyn E. Handler |
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| 1984-1990 Gordon A. Haaland |
1990-1994 Dale F. Nitzschke |
1994-2002 Joan R. Leitzel |
2002-2006 Ann W. Hart |
Two 18th Presidents?
When Joan Leitzel was inaugurated, the program read that she was to become the 18th president of the University. As Ann Weaver Hart was inaugurated, the program again described her as the 18th president. The mystery traces its roots to 1866, when the college was founded in Hanover, N.H. To save money, the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts was situated next to Dartmouth College so the two schools could share facilities and faculty. Between 1866 and 1892, three men served as president of the college’s board of trustees. By the time Everett Sackett’s history of the University was published in the mid-’70s, two of the early presidents had been dropped, leaving only Asa Smith, who had also been President of Dartmouth. This new count continued until President Leitzel, overseeing a redesign of the University seal, discovered the error. Because Smith had been president of the Board, not the institution, Leitzel ordered the mistake rectified. Thus, the University’s 18th president, Joan Leitzel, was quite correctly succeeded by its 18th president, Ann Weaver Hart.