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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 47 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • classical state universities versus land-grant institutions as the c u r r i cu l a of modern universities blend to produce a more homogeneous experience for all, it is easy to forget that there was once a deep division at the collegiate level between the teaching of basic knowledge and instruction in technical knowhow. A hundred years ago in Iowa, students wishing to receive a classic program of study attended the State University of Iowa; if they wished practical training in agriculture , applied science, engineering, or home economics, they attended the land-grant institution Iowa State Agricultural College. Land-grant colleges (later universities) were funded as technical institutions by the federal government, as designated by the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890. Iowa State was the first school to receive this federal status, on September 11, 1862. The Hatch Act of 1887 expanded the mission of land-grant universities to provide federal funding for Agricultural Experiment Stations. Forty-five years later the Fish and Wildlife Cooperative Units established by Ding Darling were also housed at land-grant universities. The names of universities largely give clues to their origins. In many states, land-grant universities have the name State after the state name. As pointed out above, in Iowa the University of Iowa is the classics school, Iowa State the technical school. The same nomenclature occurs in Michigan, with the University of Michigan and Michigan State; in Kansas with the University of Kansas and Kansas State; in Pennsylvania with the University of Pennsylvania and Penn State; in Montana with the University of Montana and Montana State, and so on. Of course, this is not always true. In New Jersey the land-grant school is Rutgers, and in Indiana it is Purdue. In Wisconsin and Ohio, one state university serves both purposes. The same occurs in Minnesota but on two campuses—the Minneapolis campus is classical, the St. Paul campus technical. There are other differences. Classical universities usually host the medical and law 4 8 • classical state universities vs. land-grant institutions schools, land-grant universities the veterinary school. Universities with their origins in the classics tend to be more progressive, while land-grant institutions tend to be more conservative. Such distinctions have diminished today, but origins give insight into approach. Born from the State University of Iowa, Lakeside’s origins are in the classics, in the sciences and humanities. (There was once a summer theater on the Lab grounds, the stage was located where the library is today, and the stands were carved into the hillside rising south to the Macbride Lab. This stage also served as an altar for Sunday morning services.) Early on, enrollments at the Lab reflected enrollments at the university—in 1909 nearly half of Lakeside’s students were women. Courses focused on recognizing the diversity of species, learning names, and understanding ecological relationships. Game and nongame species were emphasized. Students were often teachers or on their way to becoming researchers. Small, seemingly inconsequential taxonomic groups received as much attention as species deemed more immediately important to humanity. Contrast this with the fish and wildlife approach taken by the landgrant institutions. The first fisheries and wildlife biologists focused on commercially important species: muskies rather than minnows, pheasants rather than hummingbirds. Included in the fish and game philosophy were stocking programs designed to artificially inflate wildlife numbers beyond what ecosystems could naturally hold. It was a field dominated by men. The first woman in wildlife biology, Frances Hamerstrom, did not arrive in Leopold’s lab until 1940 (and Leopold was progressive). Exceptionally driven and iconoclastic, Hamerstrom had no problem holding her own. As with the trend toward an amalgamation of university missions, there has been a more recent blending of the basic science and wildlife management philosophies in biology. The best wildlife management practices now incorporate ecosystem management, which includes all the little plants and animals that compose the ecosystems that support game—the organisms that have always been the bread and butter of courses taught at Lakeside. And basic scientists will look beyond game’s purely utilitarian functions and use these species to address life’s more fundamental questions when they can. ...

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