The Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science, which appointed John Alfred Hannah as board secretary in 1935 and president in 1941, was a very different institution from the Michigan State University from which he retired in 1969, after serving twenty-eight years as president. During Hannah's tenure, overall enrollment increased from 4,401 to 40,820, while graduate student numbers went from below 200 to more than 10,000. The number of departments also grew from 44 in 1935 to 104 in 1969. Hannah's expansion of academic courses went far beyond the original agricultural and applied sciences, as was reflected in the two changes of name for the college: In 1955, the college became Michigan State University of Agriculture and Applied Science, and in 1964 it was renamed Michigan State University.
In examining this transformation, Dressel - who spent a very distinguished forty-four year career at Michigan State College/University and is noted for his writings on evaluation in higher education - produced neither a biography of Hannah nor a history of Michigan State during the Hannah years. Instead, his book describes the character of the institution before Hannah's arrival, examines Hannah's vision for the college, and evaluates Hannah's methods for "the transformation of a small land-grant college into a major university under the leadership of a man thoroughly committed to the land-grant mission." Dressel examines how Hannah sought to infuse the university with an expanded concept of public service and extended this concept to an international audience.