Prior to my joining the CSU research administration team, I was the Director for Proposal Development at Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio. Miami is an emerging research institution with an emphasis on undergraduate education. Like CSU, Miami is a public institution of higher education. Like CSU, Miami receives awards from a variety of sponsors, including federal and non-federal. Unlike CSU, Miami is not a land-grant institution. The first I learned of Miami’s status as a non-land grant was when I helped to submit a proposal to the U.S. Department of Agriculture NIFA program. The program was specific to non-land grants, so in order to determine our eligibility, I had to search the internet for information on “Land-grant colleges.”

When I arrived at CSU, I had the pleasure of meeting Jessica Fuentes, Executive Director of Finance in the College of Agricultural Sciences. Jessica filled me in on the history and nature of the land-grant. Since that time, I have read more and learned more about the nature of the land-grant and the land-grant mission to provide extension and outreach.

A “land grant” is literally that- when land is transferred from the federal government to a non-federal entity for a public purpose. Most of us are familiar with financial grants in which funds are transferred from the federal government to carry out a public purpose. In the case of a land grant, the land may be used, or the sale of the land may be used, to establish new institutions or programs within existing institutions to advance the purpose of the grant.

Often, but not always, the state institution (like Colorado State University or The Ohio State University) are the land grant institutions within a state. Just having “State” in the name of the institution is not enough to indicate the institution is a land-grant. For instance, Auburn University (AL) and the University of Nebraska (NE) are land grant institutions in their respective states. Not all land-grant institutions are public. Cornell University (NY) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology- MIT (MA) are private land-grants. And some states have more than one land grant. For instance, Alabama’s land grant system includes Auburn University, Tuskegee University, and Alabama A&M University. (The land grant system was expanded to include historically black colleges and universities as well as tribal colleges and universities.)

The coolest thing about land grants is the mission to focus on the teaching of practical agriculture, science, military science, and engineering. “Aggies” refers back to when CSU was called Colorado A&M, short for Colorado State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. Land grants often have a 3-part mission of teaching, research, and service (aka, learning, discovery, and engagement). CSU is proud of its land-grant mission which provides opportunities for learning and growth, inclusion to anyone wanting to pursue a degree in higher education, and service to society.

You can learn more about land-grant institutions and more specifically about CSU’s land grant tradition here.

To learn about the history of the land grant, and for an interactive map of all the land grant institutions in the U.S., read the Grants.gov Community Blog, “What is a Land Grant? (Parts I & 2).

Finally, if you want to gain some real insights into CSU’s funding as a land-grant, invite Jessica Fuentes out for coffee or lunch! She’s a wealth of land-grant knowledge and is willing to share.

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Sourced from:

1. gov Community Blog – https://grantsgovprod.wordpress.com/2019/11/19/what-is-a-land-grant-part-1-land-grant-colleges-and-universities/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=applicant&utm_content=january2020
2. Colorado State University 2019-2020 Catalog- https://catalog.colostate.edu/general-catalog/about-csu/land-grant/