Jay Cole may be a little more excited about land-grants than most folks. Hanging on his office wall is a framed copy of the legislation declaring West Virginia University a land-grant university.

To Cole, chief of staff to WVU President Jim Clements, and those who know and understand the land-grant mission, WVU serves as the healthy, pumping heart of West Virginia.

As Clements often asserts, no other state in the country has a university that means more to that state than WVU.

Every West Virginia resident is touched by what happens at the University.

Neighborhood pharmacists, dentists and doctors earned their degrees from here. WVU-trained engineers designed the roads and bridges. Social science experts from the University tweak public policies for our betterment.

Click below to hear "Inside WVU" on the coming celebration of land-grants.

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Improving the lives of everyday West Virginians and opening the doors for students from diverse backgrounds personify the land-grant mission executed by WVU.

“The ideas behind the land-grant, which is uniquely American, are worth celebrating any year,” Cole said.

WVU will do just that – celebrate its status as a land-grant institution – through 2013. And what an opportune time to do that – 2012 marks the sesquicentennial (150th) anniversary of the 1862 Morrill Act, which paved the way for WVU’s founding.

The celebration begins Monday (Sept. 12) with the inaugural C. Peter Magrath Lecture. It is the first of several land-grant events on campus spanning the next year-and-a-half. For a list of events, go to http://landgrant150.wvu.edu/schedule.

The University wanted to acknowledge its rich history as a land-grant institution while it looks ahead at preserving and extending that unique identity, Cole said.

Before the introduction of the land-grant institution, higher education was viewed as an elite enterprise exclusive only to wealthy white males.

The Morrill Act knocked down those barriers.

A college education became more affordable and accessible to a broader scope of folks, including the working class. Unlike existing higher education institutions at the time, land-grant universities reached out to improve communities and made their research widely available. All the while, land-grant institutions tried to maintain the level of research quality expected at their private or Ivy League counterparts.

President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act into law in 1862 after Rep. Justin Smith Morrill, of Vermont, pushed the land-grant legislation through Congress. The Act granted each state 30,000 acres of land for each member it had in Congress, with the land and gross proceeds used to fund educational institutions focused on agriculture, engineering and other subjects.

The state of West Virginia didn’t exist until 1863, a year after the Act’s passage. In 1866, state Sen. William Price, of Monongalia County, introduced a bill offering the properties of Monongalia Academy and Woodburn Seminary to start a new college, the Agricultural College of West Virginia, which became officially known as West Virginia University in 1868.

At least one land-grant institution exists in every state. WVU emerged from the original Morrill Act (1862). The only other land-grant institution in West Virginia is West Virginia State University in Institute, a product of the second Morrill Act (1890). The institutions created from the second Act are historically known as black colleges.

The American Dream remains alive and well at WVU more than a century later.

The celebration begins
On Monday (Sept. 12), Dr. Magrath will speak of the importance of land-grant universities in the 21st century. The lecture will be co-branded as the first Festival of Ideas lecture for the 2011-12 series.

Magrath, WVU’s interim president during 2008-09, has served as president of five public universities. His speech, titled “The Land Grant Faith and Its Practice,” takes place in the Marlyn E. Lugar Courtroom at the WVU College of Law.

The next land-grant themed event is a groundbreaking for the Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design’s new greenhouse on Sept. 15, followed President Clements’ State of the University Address on Oct. 10. Clements will describe how WVU’s 2020 Strategic Plan for the Future affirms the land-grant mission.

For the remainder of 2011 and through 2012, the campus will host more events designed to commemorate the land-grant mission. On Oct. 15, Community Day at the WVU Farm will celebrate the importance of agriculture as a central part of WVU’s land-grant mission and identity.

A new event, the UniverCity Symposium, will be rolled out Nov. 15 and highlight the success of the WVU-Morgantown partnership in maintaining economic growth and social vibrancy. Officials hope the symposium helps establish WVU as a hub for the systematic study of town-gown relations.

Kicking off the calendar of events in 2012 is the Capital Classic basketball game in January between WVU and Marshall in Charleston. Officials view it as an opportunity to reinforce with the Kanawha Valley audience WVU’s various roles as the state’s public, first land-grant research university with comprehensive health sciences.

Other annual events to carry a land-grant theme include Pearl Harbor Day, December Convocation, WVU Day at the Legislature, the West Virginia State Fair, Commencement and Multi-Fest.

Challenges in the 21st century
Higher education has come quite a way from its emphasis on agriculture and local communities in the 19th century. Higher ed’s gone global. And academic research stretches far beyond agriculture and into a medley of topics – technology, medicine, social sciences, just to name a few.

Land-grant institutions must adjust to these ongoing changes.

With the 2020 Strategic Plan for the Future guiding the University into the future, the land-grant mission fits into the playbook. Goal 5, particularly, echoes the land-grant sentiment: Enhance the well-being and quality of life of the people of West Virginia.

WVU distinguished alumnus and donor Ray Lane believes the University is in a firm position to accomplish this.

“The idea of the land-grant is more than 100 years old,” said Lane, a Moon Township, Pa. native who flourished as an information technology icon in Silicon Valley. “Does the idea still fit? Is it the right concept? In West Virginia’s case, the land-grant is central to the state’s growth. A lot of West Virginia students otherwise would not get the education they deserve if not for the land-grant bill.”

But land-grant institutions must also recognize the importance of globalization, a new characteristic that didn’t exist in the beginning.

“The knowledge created here at WVU is as important to other countries like China and India,” Lane said. “That exchange of information is crucial. In return, WVU becomes more notable globally.”

President Clements agrees.

“Rapid changes with global impact are affecting every aspect of our lives as we craft a strategic plan for the coming decade,” Clements said. “To fulfill our mandate as a 21st century land-grant university, we know we must excel in academics, innovate in research, foster unparalleled diversity, advance global engagement and serve our citizens like never before.”

WVU has managed to keep up with the times and preserve its original mission at the same time, Cole said. The University has kept a strong emphasis on agriculture, 4-H and Extension, but has also built a solid 21st century mission around technology, state-of-the-art healthcare and innovation.

Other land-grant universities, such as the University of California, Berkeley, are considered world-class institutions yet they have become more selective in admitting students, Cole said.

“We’ve never forgotten the mission,” Cole said. “We remain accessible and affordable, yet we do world-class research. There’s nothing like bringing in first-generation students who get the chance to work with cutting edge researchers. It’s a continuum – the student gets a chance to go to college, do research and then take that research back to their community. That’s the whole land-grant experience in a loop.”

WVU has strived for top-notch research while keeping its doors open, Cole added.

“We need to be educating all citizens,” he said. “We cannot exclude anyone from the enterprise of education. This includes minorities and students from rural parts of the country.

“We have a special obligation to be a portal to the rest of the world and the state. We want to open WVU up to the world—and bring the world here.”

By Jake Stump
University Relations/News

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js/09/12/11

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