Arthur Bronwell became a key transitional link between WPI's pioneering past and future. He recognized in WPI an institution of quality, but, with a faculty that was largely WPI educated, one that also had a provincial self-image.
Bronwell's efforts to develop WPI into a residential campus, with the construction of the Morgan Hall and Daniels Hall, began the long process of changing this introverted character. In filling new and vacant faculty positions, he searched nationwide for scholars who would add quality and diversity to the faculty.
He organized the largest capital fund campaign the college had ever conducted to build the two residence halls and Olin Hall for Physics. He converted the empty spaces once occupied by the commercial operations of the Washburn Shops to a materials engineering laboratory and a nuclear reactor facility, The latter was among the first training reactors in the nation to be placed on a college campus.