The history of the Caliper newsletter is somewhat lost to time, but we do know that in the 1960s students in the Forestry Club (now the Forestry and Wildlife Club, believed to be the second oldest student club at UConn having its first meeting in 1928) were publishing annual newsletters in a kind of year-in-review format. Much of the department's history is contained in these documents. We have archived the paper copies the department had in storage, but it is incomplete. (If you have any Calipers not on this website in any condition, please contact us!)

The Caliper evolved to a department-run newsletter in the 2000s.  As UConn's communications capabilities grew in the 2010s, UConn Today was launched, professional writers hired and online formats supplanted paper in our society.  The decision was made n 2018 to reduce the Caliper first to a two-page mailer with ample redirections to our website, and then go completely online thereafter.