ISU's Commitment to Diversity

hello I'm Martin jiske presidents of Iowa State University I'd like to talk with you for just a few minutes about something that is very important to Iowa State University important to our history and tradition important to our commitment to providing a quality education to our students and important to fulfilling our outreach mission to help Iowans build and prepare for a better future that something is our commitment to diversity Iowa State's commitment to diversity grows out of his role as Iowa's land-grant university land-grant universities came into being in the 1860s because some very visionary people saw that there was a richness in this nation that exceeded even the richness of its vast lands and bountiful natural resources the richness they saw was in the great diversity of its people they came from every part of the world including the native people of this continent they gave the United States a resource that no other place in the world had a richness and ethnicity a richness and culture a richness in diversity these visionaries saw that education was the key to tapping this rich resource of diversity so they created a system of universities unlike any seen before in the world they called them land-grant universities because they were created from grants of land given by the federal government to the states and they were created to open for the first time higher education to great numbers of people who had never had the opportunity to go to college before to people who were not wealthy to women and to persons of underrepresented or minority groups this was a radical departure from higher education as it had existed for centuries and had occurred only here in the United States the results were successful far beyond its creators most optimistic dreams for the land-grant movement played a major role in the development of the United States and the world leader it is today Iowa State is very proud of its role as the nation's first land-grant University and in the significant role it played in shaping this historic land-grant movement Iowa State was co-educational from the day it opened and it is where the Cooperative Extension Service and the Agricultural Experiment Station systems were born one of our early graduates was George Washington Carver who used his land-grant education to help southern farmers improve their lives he also made some of the century's most significant advancements in plant science we're just as proud of the role we are playing today which is to lead a national effort to revitalize the land-grant movement for the next century one of the ways we are doing this is to strengthen our commitment to these land-grant ideals of access and opportunity to open our doors even wider to more people so that we can tap even more of this rich resource of diversity of people and to continue the tremendous progress that has resulted from the land-grant movement we're very pleased to welcome you as partners in this effort our commitment to diversity also has its roots in another important land-grant ideal which is the kind of education that our students receive land-grant universities combine practical programs in areas such as engineering and agriculture with a broad education in the liberal arts and sciences as a result students who attend land-grant universities receive an education that enables them to be successful in their professional lives and to be successful as broadly educated citizens and leaders in their communities and their world this too was a radical departure from higher education as it had been known and has been remarkably successful land-grant University graduates have been among the world's most successful effect and progressive leaders of the past century and that list includes many graduates of this university our efforts to revitalize the land-grant mission for the 21st century focus on strengthening our commitment to these important land-grant ideals ideals of access and opportunity and providing the kind of education that combines practical and liberal studies to enable our graduates to be successful professionally and as citizens of their communities if we are to be successful we must keep up with the world we serve the world that our graduates are entering as professionals and as citizens it's an increasingly diverse world increasingly diverse in terms of the population of its communities increasingly diverse in terms of the global marketplace for business and trade and increasingly diverse in terms of the need to cut across national and ethnic boundaries to address issues that themselves are not limited by political boundaries to accomplish these goals we need to increase the diversity of our own University and community to provide our students with more opportunities to live with work with and learn from people of diverse backgrounds nationalities and cultures for these are the same people they will be living and working with when they leave this university and enter the business and professional world increasing the diversity of Iowa State is an important part of our strategic plan and we have established several benchmarks to measure our progress toward this goal of diversity these include minority student enrollment retention and graduation rates minority faculty and staff employment enrollment of women students percentage of women faculty staff and administrators and percentage of students enrolled in international and diversity courses we are making progress in each of these areas but we need to continue to improve if we are to achieve the goals of our strategic plan and the aspiration of that plan which is to become the best land-grant university in the nation we are very serious in this endeavor and we welcome you as partners in it the more diverse we can make this university and this community the better we will prepare our students to be successful in life and the more diverse we can make this university the better we will fulfill our mission is Iowa's land-grant University and helping the people of Iowa become participants in the ever expanding global marketplace it was MJ Riggs a member of Iowa State's very first graduating class the class of 1872 who expressed the educational philosophy of this first land-grant University when he said we come to college not alone to prepare to make a living but to learn to live a life the world of the 21st century will be smaller with fewer boundaries more interconnected with communication networks linking virtually everyone at home and at work and much more diverse what was true 135 years ago remains true today the diversity of the people of this nation is among our richest resources and it's through education that this resource can be tapped and used for the benefit of all that's our job and our responsibility here at Iowa State University thank you you