Iowa State University

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Iowa State University
Established: 1858
Type: Flagship state university
Endowment: US $496 million [1]
President: Gregory L. Geoffroy
Faculty: 1,709
Students: 26,160 (Fall 2007)
Undergraduates: 21,004 (Fall 2007)
Postgraduates: 5,156 (Fall 2007)
Location: Ames, IA, USA
Campus: Urban, 1,984 acres (8 km²)
Athletics:
Website: www.iastate.edu

The Iowa State University of Science and Technology (ISU) is a public land-grant and space-grant university located in Ames, Iowa, USA. Iowa State has produced a number of astronauts, Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners and a variety of other notable individuals in their respective fields. The January 2004 edition of The Economist ranked ISU as the 19th-best public university in the nation and 48th best public university globally for 2003.[citation needed] Until 1959 it was known as the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts.

Contents

[edit] History

In 1856, the Iowa General Assembly enacted legislation to establish the State Agricultural College and Model Farm. Story County was chosen as the location on June 21, 1859, from proposals by Johnson, Kossuth, Marshall, Polk, and Story counties. When Iowa accepted the provisions of the Morrill Act of 1862, Iowa State became the first institution designated as a land-grant college.

The institution was coeducational from the earliest year (1858). The Iowa Experiment Station was one of its 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 taught.

Fountain of Four Seasons by Christian Petersen with the Campanile in the background
Fountain of Four Seasons by Christian Petersen with the Campanile in the background

The domain occupied about 1175 acres (476 hectares), of which 120 acres (49 hectares) formed the campus. In 1914, tuition was free to residents of Iowa. Students from other States paid an annual fee of $50. There were 217 members on the faculty in 1914 when 3,458 students attended the school. In 1923, 7,766 students were taught by a faculty which numbered 567 members. In the period from 1914 to 1923, the following buildings were erected: four women's dormitories, plant propagation building and greenhouse, science building, hospital, armory, animal husbandry laboratory, agricultural engineering building, poultry laboratory, dairy judging pavilion, and sheep, horse, hog, and dairy barns. A library of 250,000 volumes' capacity, a home economics building, and a dormitory for women were under construction in 1924. The president was Raymond Allen Pearson.


[edit] Academics

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ISU is ranked among the top 50 public universities in the U.S. and is best known for its degree programs in science, engineering, and agriculture. Overall, ISU ranks #85 in the U.S. News & World Report ranking of national universities and #38 in the Washington Monthly rankings. In the latest Academic Analytics' faculty productivity index, 17 of ISU's graduate programs are ranked in the top 10 of their fields with Agricultural Economics and Counseling Psychology ranking #1 in the country.[citations needed] ISU is also home of the world's first electronic digital computing device, the Atanasoff–Berry Computer, and it is the operating agency for the Ames Laboratory, a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, where the world first mass production of uranium was enabled and started the atomic age. In addition, the university is one of 60 elected members of the Association of American Universities, an organization composed of the most highly ranked research universities in the U.S. that is only open to membership by invitation. ISU is classified as a Carnegie RU/VH institution, i.e., a research university with very high research activity[2] and receives nearly $300 million in research grants each year. The National Science Foundation ranks ISU #94 in the nation in research and development expenditures for science and engineering and #78 in total research and development expenditures. Currently ISU ranks #2 in license and options executed on its intellectual property and #5 in license and options that yield income.

The library contains nearly 2.5 million books and subscribes to more than 32,000 journals, making ISU's library one of the 100 largest university libraries in the country.

ISU is organized into 8 colleges that offer 96 Bachelors degree programs, 115 Masters programs, 83 PhD programs, and 1 professional degree program in Veterinary Medicine. ISU ranks #56 in the U.S. for total number of doctorates awarded each year.[citation needed]

ISU consists of the following colleges:

In addition to these seven colleges, the Graduate College oversees graduate study in all fields.

[edit] Athletics

Main article: Iowa State Cyclones

The "Cyclones" name dates back to 1895. That year, Iowa suffered an unusually high number of devastating cyclones (as tornadoes were called at the time). In September, the Iowa State football team traveled to Northwestern University and defeated its highly-regarded team by a score of 36-0. The next day, the Chicago Tribune's headline read "Struck by a Cyclone: It Comes from Iowa and Devastates Evanston Town."[3] The article reported that "Northwestern might as well have tried to play football with an Iowa cyclone as with the Iowa team it met yesterday." The nickname stuck and the Iowa State team had made a name for itself.

The school colors are cardinal red and gold. The mascot is Cy, a cardinal, introduced in 1954. Since a cyclone was determined to be difficult to depict in costume, the cardinal was chosen in reference to the the school colors. A contest was held to select a name for the mascot, with the name Cy being chosen as the winner. Cy was voted by fans on the CBS Sports website, cbs.sportsline.com, as the "Most Dominant College Mascot on Earth" despite the fact that Cy did not qualify for mascot national championships in Orlando, FL last year [2].

The Iowa State Cyclones play in the NCAA's Division I-A as part of the Big 12 Conference.

[edit] Student Life

[edit] Residence Halls

Iowa State operates 18 on-campus residence halls. The residence halls are divided into geographical areas. Richardson Court consists of 12 dormitories on the east side of campus. Union Drive consists of four dormitories located on the west side of campus, including Friley Hall, which has been declared one of the largest dormitories in the country. [4] The Towers Residence Halls are located south of campus. They were reserved for second-year students and upperclassmen. Two of the four towers were imploded, however, within the past decade. ISU also operates two apartment complexes for upperclassmen, Frederiksen Court and SUV Apartments.

[edit] Student Government

The governing body for ISU students is the Government of Student Body, or GSB. The GSB is composed of a president, vice president, cabinet, senators representing each college and residence area at the University, a nine-member judicial branch and an election commission. [5]

[edit] Student Organizations

ISU has over 600 student organizations on campus that represent a variety of interests. Organizations are supported by Iowa State's Student Activities Center. Many student organization offices are housed in the Memorial Union.

[edit] Greek Community

ISU is home to an active Greek community. There are 51 chapters that involve 11% of undergraduate students. Collectively, fraternity and sorority members have raised over $82,000 for philanthropies and committed 31,416 hours to community service. In 2006, the ISU Greek community was named the best large Greek community in the Midwest. [6]

CPC Sororities IFC Fraternities National Pan-Hellenic Multicultural

[edit] School Newspaper

Main article: Iowa State Daily

The Iowa State Daily is the university's student newspaper. The Daily has its roots from a news sheet titled the Clipper, which was started in the spring of 1890 by a group of students at Iowa Agricultural College led by F.E. Davidson. The Clipper soon led to the creation of the Iowa Agricultural College Student, and the beginnings of what would one day become the Iowa State Daily.

[edit] Landmarks

View looking east towards Roberts Hall.
View looking east towards Roberts Hall.
Main article: Buildings of Iowa State University

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.[7] Central campus is a 20-acre lawn and was listed as a "medallion site" by the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1999, one of only three college campuses designated as such. The other two are Yale and the University of Virginia. Thomas Gaines, in The Campus As a Work of Art (1991), proclaimed the Iowa State campus to be one of the twenty-five most beautiful campuses in the country.[citation needed]

[edit] VEISHEA celebration

Main article: VEISHEA

Iowa State is also known for VEISHEA, an education and entertainment festival held on campus every spring. The name VEISHEA is derived from the initials of ISU's original five colleges. Its organizers claim it to be among the largest student-organized events in the world. The 2007 VEISHEA festivities marked the start of Iowa State's year-long sesquicentennial celebration.

[edit] Notable people

George Washington Carver was a student and faculty member at Iowa State.
George Washington Carver was a student and faculty member at Iowa State.
Main article: List of Iowa State University people

As with any major public university, many Iowa State University alumni have achieved fame or notoriety after graduating. These people include athletes, film and television actors.

[edit] Iowa State chronology

Events occurring in the same year did not necessarily happen in the order presented here.

Year Event
1856 Iowa General Assembly enacted legislation for creation of the State Agricultural College and Model Farm
1859 Story County was the chosen county for the State Agricultural College and Model Farm
1860 Construction starts on the first building on campus, Farm House
1862 Morrill Act of 1862 was passed; college to be named Iowa State Agricultural College
1869 First graduating class enters Iowa State[8]
1875 The first national fraternity, Delta Tau Delta, opens at Iowa State
1877 The first national sorority, Pi Beta Phi, opens at Iowa State
1879 The School of Veterinary Science is formally organized. It's the first of its kind in the United States.
1890 Student newspaper Iowa Agricultural College Student is founded. Later to be named the Iowa State Daily
1895 Football team nicknamed Cyclones for their performance against Northwestern University
1898 The college is divided into "divisions": Agriculture, Engineering, Science and Philosophy, and Veterinary Medicine
1898 Renamed the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts
1913 The college roads are paved
1922 VEISHEA was established
1922 Jack Trice is mortally injured during a football game against Minnesota
1939 The Atanasoff–Berry Computer is first demonstrated
1954 Cy becomes the Iowa State mascot
1959 Renamed the Iowa State University of Science and Technology
1959 Iowa State's divisions become colleges: the College of Agriculture, College of Engineering, College of Home Economics, College of Sciences and Humanities, and College of Veterinary Medicine
1962 Enrollment reaches 10,000 students
1966 Enrollment reaches 15,000 students
1968 The College of Education is established
1974 The Maintenance Shop opens in the Memorial Union
1979 The College of Design is established
1984 The College of Business is established
1988 First VEISHEA Riot
1992 Second VEISHEA Riot
1999 Central Campus is listed as a "medallion site" by the American Society of Landscape Architects
2004 Third VEISHEA Riot
2005 The College of Education and the College of Family and Consumer Sciences are combined to create the College of Human Sciences
2006 VEISHEA returns after being canceled for 2005; is deemed a huge success
2008 Sesquicentennial of Iowa State

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "2006 NACUBO Endowment Study". National Association of College and University Business Officers.
  2. ^ [1] Carnegie Classifications for Iowa State University
  3. ^ Iowa State University Time Line, 1875-1899. Iowa State University website.
  4. ^ The seven wonders of Iowa State. The Iowa State Daily.
  5. ^ Government of the Student Body Constitution
  6. ^ Greek Community Statistics. ISU Office of Greek Affairs.
  7. ^ It's a Fact: Iowa State University. Iowa State University website.
  8. ^ History of Iowa State (English). Iowa State University. Retrieved on 2007/4/17.

[edit] External links

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Iowa State University
Academics Colleges: Agriculture and Life Sciences • Business • Design • Engineering • Graduate College • Human Sciences • Liberal Arts and Sciences • Veterinary Medicine
Athletics Men's:M Basketball • Baseball • Football • M Swimming • M Cross Country • M Golf • Wrestling • M Track & Field • Women's: W Basketball • Softball • W Track & Field • W Cross Country • W Golf • W Volleyball • W Tennis • W Gymnastics • W Swimming • W Soccer Venues: • Hilton Coliseum • Jack Trice Stadium • Cap Timm Field • Misc.: Cy-Hawk Trophy • Hy-Vee Cy-Hawk Series
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This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.

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