Iowa State University

The Iowa State University of Science and Technology, also referred to as Iowa State University (Iowa State or ISU), is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the nation's first designated land-grant institutions when the Iowa Legislature accepted the provisions of the 1862 Morrill Act on September 11, 1862. On July 4, 1959, the college was officially renamed Iowa State University of Science and Technology.

Iowa State is the second largest university in Iowa by total enrollment. The university's academic offerings are administered through eight colleges, including the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the College of Veterinary Medicine, the College of Engineering, the Graduate College, the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, the College of Design, Debbie and Jerry Ivy College of Business, and the College of Health and Human Sciences. They offer more than 100 bachelor's degree programs, 120 master's degree programs, and 80 doctoral degree programs, plus a professional degree program in Veterinary Medicine.

Iowa State is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity." The university is affiliated with the Ames National Laboratory, the Biorenewables Research Laboratory, the Plant Sciences Institute, and various other research institutes. Iowa State University's athletic teams, the Cyclones, compete in Division I of the NCAA and are a founding member of the Big 12.

History

In 1856, the Iowa General Assembly enacted legislation to establish the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm. This institution (now Iowa State University) was officially established on March 22, 1858, by the General Assembly. Story County was chosen as the location on June 21, 1859, beating proposals from Johnson, Kossuth, Marshall and Polk counties. The original farm of 648 acres (2.62 km2) was purchased at a cost of $5,379.

Iowa was the first state in the nation to accept the provisions of the Morrill Act of 1862. The state subsequently designated Iowa State as the land-grant college on March 29, 1864. Iowa State University is one of four universities that claims to be the first land-grant institution in the United States, the others being Kansas State University, Michigan State University, and the Pennsylvania State University.

From the start, Iowa Agricultural College focused on the ideals that higher education should be accessible to all and that the university should teach liberal and practical subjects. These ideals are integral to the land-grant university.

The institution has been coeducational since the first class admitted in 1868. Formal admissions began the following year, and the first graduating class of 1872 consisted of 24 men and two women.

The Farm House, the first building on the Iowa State campus, was completed in 1861 before the campus was occupied by students or classrooms. It became the home of the superintendent of the Model Farm and in later years, the deans of Agriculture, including Seaman Knapp and James "Tama Jim" Wilson. Iowa State's first president, Adonijah Welch, briefly stayed at the Farm House and penned his inaugural speech in a second floor bedroom.

The Iowa Experiment Station was one of the university's prominent features. Practical courses of instruction were taught, including one designed to give a general training for the career of a farmer. Courses in mechanical, civil, electrical, and mining engineering were also part of the curriculum.

In 1870, President Welch and I. P. Roberts, professor of agriculture, held three-day farmers' institutes at Cedar Falls, Council Bluffs, Washington, and Muscatine. These became the earliest institutes held off-campus by a land grant institution and were the forerunners of 20th century extension.

In 1872, the first courses were given in domestic economy (home economics, family and consumer sciences) and were taught by Mary B. Welch, the president's wife. Iowa State became the first land grant university to offer training in domestic economy for college credit.

Campus

Iowa State's campus contains over 160 buildings. Several buildings, as well as the Marston Water Tower, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The central campus includes 490 acres (2.0 km2) of trees, plants, and classically designed buildings. The landscape's most dominant feature is the 20-acre (81,000 m2) central lawn, which was listed as a "medallion site" by the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1999.

Thomas Gaines, in The Campus As a Work of Art, claimed that the Iowa State campus was one of the twenty-five most beautiful campuses in the country.

Campanile

The campanile was constructed during 1897–1898 as a memorial to Margaret MacDonald Stanton, Iowa State's first dean of women, who died on July 25, 1895. The tower is located on ISU's central campus, just north of the Memorial Union. The site was selected by Margaret's husband, Edgar W. Stanton, with the help of then-university president William M. Beardshear. The campanile stands 110 feet (34 m) tall on a 16 by 16 foot (5 by 5 m) base, and cost $6,510.20 to construct.

The campanile is widely seen as one of the major symbols of Iowa State University. It is featured prominently on the university's official ring and the university's mace, and is also the subject of the university's alma mater, The Bells of Iowa State.

Lake LaVerne

Named for LaVerne W. Noyes, who graduated in 1872, and later donated the funds to see that Alumni Hall could be completed after sitting unfinished and unused from 1905 to 1907. Lake LaVerne is located west of the Memorial Union and south of Alumni Hall, Carver Hall, and Music Hall. The lake was a gift from Noyes in 1916.

Lake LaVerne is the home of two mute swans named Sir Lancelot and Elaine, donated to Iowa State by VEISHEA 1935. In 1944, 1970, and 1971 cygnets (baby swans) made their home on Lake LaVerne. Previously Sir Lancelot and Elaine were trumpeter swans but were too aggressive and in 1999 were replaced with two mute swans.

In early spring 2003, Lake LaVerne welcomed its newest and most current mute swan duo. In support of Iowa Department of Natural Resources efforts to re-establish the trumpeter swans in Iowa, university officials avoided bringing breeding pairs of male and female mute swans to Iowa State which means the current Sir Lancelot and Elaine are both female.

Reiman Gardens

Iowa State has maintained a horticulture garden since 1914. Reiman Gardens is the third location for these gardens. Today's gardens began in 1993 with a gift from Bobbi and Roy Reiman. Construction began in 1994 and the Gardens' initial 5 acres (20,000 m2) were officially dedicated on September 16, 1995.

Academics

Colleges and schools

Iowa State University is organized into eight colleges and two schools that offer 100 Bachelor's degree programs, 112 Masters programs, and 83 Ph.D programs, including one professional degree program in Veterinary Medicine.

ISU is home to the following schools:

Greenlee School of Journalism and Mass Communication (within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences)

School of Education (within the College of Human Sciences)

Rankings

Classified as one of Carnegie's "R1: Doctoral Universities - Very High Research Activity," Iowa State received nearly $550 million in research grants for fiscal year 2025.

Parks Library

The W. Robert and Ellen Sorge Parks Library contains over 2.6 million books and subscribes to more than 98,600 journal titles. Named for W. Robert Parks (1915–2003), the 11th president of Iowa State University, and his wife, Ellen Sorge Parks, the original library was built in 1925 with three subsequent additions made in 1961, 1969, and 1983. The library was dedicated and named after W. Robert and Ellen Sorge Parks in 1984.

Surrounding the first floor lobby staircase in Parks Library are eight mural panels designed by Iowa artist Grant Wood. As with Breaking the Prairie Sod, Wood's other Iowa State University mural painted two years later, Wood borrowed his theme for When Tillage Begins Other Arts Follow from a speech on agriculture delivered by Daniel Webster in 1840 at the State House in Boston, in which farmers were portrayed as the founders of human civilization.

Cooperative extension

The cooperative extension service traces its roots to farmers' institutes developed at Iowa State in the late 19th century. Committed to community, Iowa State pioneered the outreach mission of being a land-grant college through creation of the first Extension Service in 1902. In 1906, the Iowa Legislature enacted the Agricultural Extension Act making funds available for demonstration projects. It is believed this was the first specific legislation establishing state extension work, for which Iowa State assumed responsibility. The national extension program was created in 1914 based heavily on the Iowa State model.

Research

Iowa State University is a member of the Universities Research Association, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. In fiscal year 2023, Iowa State spent $420.8 million in R&D.

Iowa State was a member of the Association of American Universities from 1958 until April 2022. It departed claiming that AAU's internal ranking indicators unfairly favor institutions with high levels of NIH funding and noted that its strength is not in biomedical research because the school does not have a medical school.

Ames National Laboratory

Iowa State is the only university in the United States that has a U.S. Department of Energy research laboratory physically located on its campus. Operated by Iowa State, Ames National Laboratory is one of ten national DOE Office of Science research laboratories.

ISU research for the government provided Ames National Laboratory its start in the 1940s with the development of a highly efficient process for producing high-purity uranium for atomic energy. Today, Ames National Laboratory continues its leading status in current materials research and focuses diverse fundamental and applied research strengths upon issues of national concern, cultivates research talent, and develops and transfers technologies to improve industrial competitiveness and enhance U.S. economic security. Ames National Laboratory employs more than 500 full- and part-time employees. Students make up more than 45 percent of the paid workforce.

Dan Shechtman, awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of quasicrystals at Johns Hopkins University, is an Associate of Ames National Laboratory.

ISU Research Park

The ISU Research Park Corporation was established in 1987 as a not-for-profit, independent, corporation operating under a board of directors appointed by Iowa State University and the ISU Foundation. The corporation manages both the Research Park and incubator programs.

Other research institutes

In 2010, the Biorenewables Research Laboratory opened in a LEED-Gold certified building that complements and helps replace labs and offices across Iowa State and promotes interdisciplinary, systems-level research and collaboration. The Lab houses the Bioeconomy Institute, the Biobased Industry Center, and the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals, a partnership of six universities as well as the Max Planck Society in Germany and the Technical University of Denmark.

The Engineering Teaching and Research Complex was built in 1999 and is home to Stanley and Helen Howe Hall and Gary and Donna Hoover Hall. The complex is occupied by the Virtual Reality Applications Center (VRAC), Center for Industrial Research and Service (CIRAS), Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Engineering Computer Support Services, Engineering Distance Education, and Iowa Space Grant Consortium. And the complex contains one of the world's only six-sided immersive virtual reality labs (C6), as well as the 240 seat 3D-capable Alliant Energy Lee Liu Auditorium, the Multimodal Experience Testbed and Laboratory (METaL), and the User Experience Lab (UX Lab). All of which supports the research of more than 50 faculty and 200 graduate, undergraduate, and postdoctoral students.

Student life

Residence halls

Iowa State operates 20 on-campus residence halls. The residence halls are divided into geographical areas.

The Union Drive Association

(UDA) consists of four residence halls located on the west side of campus, including Friley Hall, which has been declared one of the largest residence halls in the country.

The Richardson Court Association (RCA) consists of 12 residence halls on the east side of campus.

The Towers Residence Association (TRA) are located south of the main campus. Two of the four towers, Knapp and Storms Halls, were imploded in 2005; however, Wallace and Wilson Halls still stand.

Buchanan Hall and Geoffroy Hall are nominally considered part of the RCA, despite their distance from the other buildings.

ISU operates two apartment complexes for upperclassmen, Frederiksen Court and SUV Apartments.

Student government

The governing body for ISU students is the ISU Student Government. The ISU Student Government is composed of a president, vice president, finance director, cabinet appointed by the president, a clerk appointed by the vice president, senators representing each college and residence area at the university, a nine-member judicial branch, and an election commission.

Student organizations

ISU has over 900 student organizations on campus that represent a variety of interests. Organizations are supported by Iowa State's Student Engagement Office. Many student organization offices are housed in the Memorial Union.

The Memorial Union at Iowa State University opened in September 1928 and is currently home to a number of University departments and student organizations, The M-Shop, CyBowl & Billiards, the University Book Store, and the Workspace.

The original building was designed by architect, William T. Proudfoot. The building employs a classical style of architecture reflecting Greek and Roman influences. The building's design specifically complements the designs of the major buildings surrounding the University's Central Campus area, Beardshear Hall to the west, Curtiss Hall to the east, and MacKay Hall to the north. The style utilizes columns with Corinthian capitals, Palladian windows, triangular pediments, and formally balanced facades.

Designed to be a living memorial for ISU students lost in World War I, the building includes a solemn memorial hall, named the Gold Star Room, which honors the names of the dead World War I, World War II, Korean, Vietnam, and war on terrorism veterans engraved in marble. Symbolically, the hall was built directly over a library (the Browsing Library) and a small chapel, the symbol being that no country would ever send its young men to die in a war for a noble cause without a solid foundation on both education (the library) and religion (the chapel). On Veterans Day in 2014, ISU's "Gold Star Hall" publicly honored Petty Officer Jerry Leroy Converse, a U.S. Navy sailor that was killed by Israel during the 1967 USS Liberty incident. Converse is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Cherokee, Iowa. This ceremony came 47 years after the attack.

Эх сурвалж: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)