Talk:Land-grant university

Older comments
3-2-04 I am trying to determine the historical relationship between "normal schools" and "land- grant universities"; for instance, Illinois State vs. Univ of Ill. Specifially, I'm wondering if it's possible to say that all or most normal schools were not land-grant universities. Can this be addressed in this article; or a new article written for "normal schools"? Or, just help in researching this would be appreciated. :-)

''Shouldn't this be renamed land-grant university? "Land-grant" by itself doesn't mean "land-grant university," does it? (I don't know, maybe it does.)''

I wrestled with that myself, LS. I settled on land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant because both colleges and universities were involved and because I knew that if that didn't seem correct, you or Jimbo would make a more appropro suggestion. As far as I can tell (I performed a few searches on Google to double check myself and then read through the relevant Acts on Thomas), land-grant, sea-grant and space-grant issues refer to colleges and universities. However, my encyclopedic knowledge is limited and Wikipedia is my adventure in learning about a different style of writing and editing. So, if you've a better suggestion, I'll defer. :-) -Invictus

Well, it's up to whoever can convince the others that he knows what he's talking about. :-) --LS

The Morrill Act specifically aimed at "practical", not "liberal" arts, although its fine print did allow the so-created colleges to teach other stuff. Hence, I deleted the "liberal" reference (which the original writer tried to make read "liberal arts" according to the copy. The lack of space between "college' and "education" I can't seem to correct, as it goes between two lines of text on the work page.Sfahey 16:19, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

List of Universities (27/11/2004)
The list of universities at the bottom of the article is very redundant with the university template also displayed at the bottom. I would edit and remove it myself, but I figured I should ask first in case there's something I'm missing. Thanks. --DiGiT

FWIW, Big 12 Conference, Ivy League, etc. also have their respective templates at the bottom.... Cburnett 20:34, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Seems redundant in any case to me, but oh well. I'll leave it. DiGiT 00:57, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree about it being redundant. But at the moment only my almamatter has the template on it and I don't really want to spend the time linking the rest. :) So I suppose you could consider it a weak form of advertising that it's there. Maybe I'll get the motivation to do it some time and then remove the template.

Or perhaps look at it from the other hand. How can the bulleted list be improved (or even deleted) such that it's not redundant? Maybe listing it by state (some states have multiple colleges)? Cburnett 03:02, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oldest (?) land grant university
Univ. of Maryland was founded way before MSU, and is considered a "land-grant" school. Anyway, the Morrill Act didn't come until much later. The recent edit is questionable. Sfahey 17:31, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Michigan State is the first, how come it was changed?
 * This page is out of control, with now five schools claiming essentially the same recognition, even WITHOUT UMaryland, which dates to ca. 1807 and is also a land grant institution. Any experts out there?Sfahey 20:41, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
 * The last time I studied land-grant universities was four years ago, so unfortunately I can't resolve this debate. But it seems to me that we need to draw a distinction between land-grant institutions that were founded under the auspices of the Morrill Acts and existing institutions that were simply assisted with Morrill Act grants.  --Coolcaesar 23:59, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I could be wrong, but I think The University of Maryland accepted a land grant long after its establishment like many existing universities did. However, there is a history of land grants for universities not related to the Morrill Act that is left out. The state of Georgia set aside 40,000 acres to act as a land grant to start a university in 1784, which was granted to the University of Georgia in 1785. The possession and selling of the 40,000 was the primary financing for UGA's beginning. I know this was the first state land grant to charter a university and it wasn't without its problems. However, I am really curious if any of the colonial universities were founded via land grants through colonial or British charters. Either way the history of the practice of land grant universities in the U.S. needs to be emboldened.  Michigan State University was the first time the U.S. congress used a land grant of federal lands. And many existing univesities became land grant universities long after they were established under the Morril Act (UGA, Rutgers, U of Maryland, and countless other). I want to expand this in the article, but I also want to open this up to discussion first and see if there any more enlightening information out there. Cwkimbro (talk) 21:20, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

And Rutgers isn't the oldest pre-existing university to receive a land grant. Yale (Sheffield Scientific School) is. Greener08 (talk) 17:18, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Michigan State University is known as the "pioneer land-grant institution" because it was the first to be founded (1855) with an appropriation of public land to finance it; however, that grant was of state-owned land. MSU (known at the time as State Agricultural College) served as a model for the first Morrill Act, and it received Michigan's Morrill grant starting in 1863. Both its founding and Morrill dates precede those of Iowa State (1858 and 1864, respectively), so it seems to me that the Iowa State claim is false — especially in light of Kansas State's 1863 founding. I also think Yale is a special case that bears mentioning here (but not necessarily in the article): according to the Sheffield Scientific School article, the Morrill grant was re-assigned to Storrs Agricultural School in 1893. So if we want to talk about a land-grant school in Connecticut, it's UConn, not Yale. Kevin Forsyth (talk) 14:14, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * This isn't quite correct. Michigan State University does call themselves the "pioneer land-grant institution" and they did serve as a model for the Morrill Act, which is worth mentioning, but as I already stated above they are not the first state to set up a land-grant to found and finance a college. The University of Georgia was founded in 1785 with a land grant of state owned land. Cwkimbro (talk) 23:46, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Land, Sea and Space Grants
I count at least 13 universities with all three of these designations:


 * University of Alaska Fairbanks
 * Cornell University
 * University of Delaware
 * University of Hawaii at Manoa
 * Louisiana State University
 * University of Maine
 * Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 * University of Minnesota
 * University of New Hampshire
 * Oregon State University
 * University of Puerto Rico
 * Purdue University
 * Texas A&M University

I will change appropriate references at the three relevant pages to reflect this number. Any others? btm 08:13, 30 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I'd love to know if there are some other references besides btm's own research. For example, the LSU article states there are 21. Earthsound 20:36, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

First?
Question posed by 67.82.113.64: "Why is Rutgers the 'oldest' if Michigan State was 'chartered' first in 1855?"

Rutgers was founded first, then received a land grant later. Michigan State was the first to be founded with a land grant in its charter. Kevin Forsyth (talk) 16:17, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

mad
everytime i come to this stupid website it dont give me no answers so bye fudge packers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.136.0.194 (talk) 13:19, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * First sentence or paragraph does not say what these universities do. The single characteristic which distinguishes these universities from any other university is described unmeaningfully by the proper name "Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890". Further reading reveals that, not only is the description insufficient and "Morrill Acts" does not correspondend to "land-grant", but it is in fact false, as there existed universities founded before the Acts existed, and later universities were founded under different legislative acts. —Centrx→talk &bull; 05:25, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

even if rutgers is the oldest school having received a land grant, the information does not belong in the article as it is trivial within context. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.227.165.59 (talk) 05:44, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

WVSU
Added to "History" that WVSU is the only land-grant university to surrender its land-grant status as well as being the smallest in the country. Seems important enough to at least have a sentence since it is the only one to surrender its status as well as being the smallest. 129.71.208.91 (talk) 13:57, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

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"Agricultural and Mechanical College"
Wikipedia seems to have no content about the general history of the use of the term "Agricultural and Mechanical" in the names of colleges -- only articles about assorted individual US institutions, such as Texas A&M. It would be interesting to know when and where the term originated, how it spread, and how it is dying out. What most similar terms have been used in other countries?-73.61.15.196 (talk) 14:08, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

State Law Precedents
The heading, "State Law Precedents" does not really belong in this article, in my opinion. This little section mentions a few institutions that were established on lands awarded by state legislatures years -- or decades -- before the Morrill Acts. If we're to keep this, we'd have to list dozens more that fall into this category--but since this article is about the land-grant institutions that arose from the federal acts, I recommend deleting "State Law Precedents" here. I've tried to clean this subheading up for now. What do others think?Kfhtoll (talk) 19:14, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Controversy: Seizure of Indian Lands
The appropriation of 'Indian Lands' has been the subject of some controversy. See:

https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/great-university-land-grab — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.150.38.110 (talk) 13:23, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

isn't "land grant university" more meaningless than anything?
is there anything about a land grant school that differs today from non land grant schools? If there is nothing to point to, shouldn't all those articles across wikipedia that mention it in the lede instead relegate it to the history section? it just seems so wasteful, like saying "this university has had sunny days, and cloudy days." 2603:8001:D3F0:87E0:0:0:0:10D0 (talk) 22:48, 22 September 2023 (UTC)