INTRODUCTION 

The Furnas Memorial Collection was established by Mrs. Sparkle M. Furnas to commemorate the achievements of her husband, Dr. Clifford C. Furnas (1900-1969), the ninth Chancellor of University of Buffalo and the first President of State University of New York (SUNY) from 1955 to 1966.  It was Dr. Furnas who oversaw the University's 1962 merger with SUNY.  

The Furnas Memorial Collection, housed at the University Archives, consists of approximately 900 historical artifacts, 200 linear feet of archival documents and photographs, documenting Dr. Furnas' life and career from the 1920s to 1969. 

Dr. Furnas was a nationally recognized scientist, educator, administrator, and author. He studied chemical engineering at Purdue University from 1918 to 1922 and taught Engineering at Yale in the 1930s. He directed the Airplane Division of Curtiss-Wright in Buffalo, New York from 1942 to 1945 and the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory from 1946 to1954. From 1955 to 1957, Dr. Furnas served as Assistant Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon, under the Eisenhower administration.  

His personal and professional achievements included his participation in the 1920 Olympic Games, authoring an award-winning book, and working on the project to develop the United States first space satellite, Explorer I.   

Dr. Furnas once said, "All of my life I have been involved alternately in research and university education. They go together and they are both necessary for human progress…" The Clifford C. Furnas Memorial Exhibit is seeks to capture Dr. Furnas as an individual who found the growth of the human spirit in research and university education.