However, officials of the University continued their policy of refusing to bestow on local colleges
and universities the power of conferring degrees and granting diplomas. Nonetheless, on March 11, 1896,
after the location and the building had been inspected and approved by an inspector from the Regents, the
Board of Trustees made formal application to the State Board of Regents for a charter.
A week later, on March 19, 1896, Anson Judd Upson, chancellor, and Melvil Dewey, secretary of
the University of the State of New York, approved the application, and signed the Charter of the Thomas S.
Clarkson Memorial School of Technology. By this charter:
All graduates who shall have satisfactorily completed the course of study and the examinations required and shall
have been recommended by the Trustees for the degree of Bachelor of Science, shall receive from the University the degree of
B.S. certified by a diploma bearing the seals and the official signatures both of the institution and the University of the State of
New York.
Clarkson's Trustees, however, were not satisfied with this wording, and successfully presented their
arguments in Albany on October 15. Thus, the charter was modified by a compromise in which both the
College and the State University were properly recognized in the granting of degrees. Two weeks later, on
October 27, 1896, the Trustees in Potsdam formally accepted the revised charter, and officially and legally
organized themselves as the Board of Trustees of Clarkson Memorial School. John G. McIntyre was named
president; Miss Annie Clarkson, secretary; and George Sweet, treasurer.
On September 25, 1913, the Charter again was amended to read [in part]:
... by changing its corporate name to Thomas S. Clarkson Memorial College of Technology and further, by
authorizing the College to confer appropriate degrees upon its graduates who duly earn the same, and also to confer such
degrees upon those who duly earn them in post graduate work done there.
Three observations emerge from that amended charter. First, the reason for the change from
School
to
College
lay in the establishment of Regents Scholarships by the state legislature to aid the state's students
attending New York colleges. Paragraph 77 of this new law stipulated that:
... the college selected by the person entitled to the scholarship must be within the state and incorporated as a college
and authorized under the laws of the state.
After this new law was passed in spring 1913, the Trustees wanted to make certain that Clarkson students
could avail themselves of its benefits so they amended the charter. Four of the freshmen entering in fall 1913
were recipients of Regents Scholarships.
