IFAS Matters - June 2012

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Jack Payne

Say Sesquicentennial!

It seems that 1862 was a very busy year. So busy in fact, that in 2012 there will be a bumper crop of sesquicentennial commemoratives. Taps, the Battle of Puebla (Cinco de Mayo), the Medal of Honor, the U.S.-Dakota War, the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Union Pacific Railroad, Gustav Klimt, the Homestead Act of 1862 and Bacardi (with a limited edition rum to sell for $2,000 this year), are all turning 150 in 2012.

But there’s one very special 150th that UF/IFAS and the other 106 land-grant institutions will celebrate this year, and that’s the Sesquicentennial of the Morrill Act, known as the Land-Grant College Act.

Seven score and 10 years ago, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act, granting each state 30,000 acres of public land for each member of Congress and establishing the land-grant-system. The land, or money received from its sale, was used to establish and maintain institutions of higher learning. The Morrill Act offered a new kind of college with a focus on making higher education accessible and that would, "…promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life."

Lincoln could hardly have imagined the magnitude of the land grants’ impacts: increased job creation, economic development, food security, food production and food safety; improved human health and nutrition; and greater natural resource conservation, to name a few. Not to mention great football, Gatorade and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream…

Sadly, if Lincoln were alive in today’s vitriolic atmosphere and budget austerity, there might be some folks who would haul him over the coals for being a "land-grabbing socialist.” Chances are that the Morrill Act wouldn’t make it through Congress. But as Lincoln once said, “The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future.” Cutting investments in research, teaching and outreach is like eating your seed corn — next year you’ll go hungry.

This summer at IFAS, we’ll proudly celebrate our first 150 years knowing that we have the responsibility and privilege to continue to pioneer new knowledge that serves the state and world. I believe Abe Lincoln and Justin Smith Morrill would be proud of the work their vision wrought. I know I am proud of the work we do here in Florida as we fulfill our land-grant mission.
So let us raise our cups and toast the Sesquicentennial of the Morrill Act and wish it continued successes well into its tercentennial.

-Jack

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