Photo: Quintin Soloviev, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The University of Rhode Island began in 1892 as the Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, a land-grant school on farmland in the village of Kingston. It became the University of Rhode Island in 1951.
Today the Kingston campus enrolls well over 15,000 students and is the largest employer in South Kingstown.
Beyond Kingston
URI’s Narragansett Bay Campus, on the water in Narragansett, is home to the Graduate School of Oceanography, one of the oldest oceanography schools in the country. Research ships and labs there bring federal grants and scientists to the area.
The university also has campuses in Providence and at the W. Alton Jones Campus in West Greenwich.
Effect on the area
Students fill rental houses in Narragansett during the school year, a long-running source of tension with year-round neighbors. Many beach cottages are rented to students from September to May and to vacationers in summer.
Football and basketball games, along with concerts at the Ryan Center, bring visitors to Kingston. Businesses on Upper College Road and in Wakefield rely heavily on student spending.
The university’s farm programs and Cooperative Extension also still work with local growers and fishermen.
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