In 1985, The Travelers Companies and the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and Affiliated Hospitals (UCSM) agreed that it was time for the state university to have a comprehensive program in geriatrics and gerontology. A one million dollar endowment for the Travelers Chair in Geriatrics and Gerontology was accompanied by a grant of $250,000 to provide program initiation funds. The University of Connecticut Center on Aging (UCA) was established in 1986 and Richard W. Besdine, MD, was recruited from Harvard Medical School as founding center director and first occupant of the Travelers Chair.

Within two years, every health care institution in Greater Hartford had affiliated with the UCA for education and research activities related to aging. A fellowship program to train physicians and dentists for academic careers in aging was established, and rapidly rose to the nation's "top ten." Now mature, the UCA continues to grow. Full-time faculty at UCSM and affiliated sites have expanded to 46; two administrative branches of the UCA serve the entire University, one at the Health Center and one at the University campus in Storrs, Connecticut. A second $1 million endowment by The Travelers Companies established the Travelers Research Institute on Health Promotion and Aging (TRIHPA); the research center focuses on interventions to help keep older adults robust and independent. In 1996, the UCA was awarded an NIH-funded Claude Pepper Older American Independence Center to conduct research and research training to prevent frailty in older persons.

Forty-five physicians and six dentists have been trained for teaching and research careers in aging in the Geriatrics Fellowship Program; 23 have joined the UCA faculty. The Division of Geriatrics, sponsored by the UCA, is an important component of the Medical School's Department of Medicine. More than 25 faculty from clinical and basic science departments at UCHC participate in clinical, teaching or research programs on aging through the UCA. UCA faculty are sought regionally and nationally to consult on matters related to aging and to academic medicine. Total external funding exceeds $25 million, and the UCA has become, in the words of the University President and of the Chancellor for Health Affairs, "a flagship program of the University." From an early vision of what aging might become at the University and in the region, the UCA has grown to national visibility and productivity.