When looking around the UI campus, it’s not hard to see the importance and emphasis the university puts on research. Walking to class, students might pass the JW Martin Lab, one of the many engineering labs, the food research center, or the meat science lab. Research is being done all over campus – and that’s not even considering all the research happening at off-campus centers across Idaho as well. UI spends millions each year on funding research – in fact, in 2019, UI spent $115 million on grants and research projects alone. All of this research and experimentation is making huge impacts at the university, in the state of Idaho, and the country as a whole. The driving factor behind much of this important research is the fact that the UI is a land-grant institution – the only such institution in the state of Idaho.
Land-grant institutions first began to be established in the United States in 1862 with the passage of the Morill Land-Grant Act. This grant was signed into law by President Lincoln with the purpose to distribute lands and funds for universities that would focus on the teaching of agriculture, science, military, and engineering. This act allotted 30,000 acres to each state and territory to be used to establish a university that would be less of a liberal arts school, focusing on more practical and technical aspects of education.
The Morill Land-Grant Act is the reason that the University of Idaho exists- UI was established in 1889 as the land-grant university for Idaho, a year before Idaho was admitted to statehood in 1890. Along with creating these more technical education universities, this grant also established agricultural experiment stations at the colleges – including UI.
Mark McGuire, The Associate Dean of Research and Director of the Idaho Experiment Station explained that their original purpose was to improve communities and the country as a whole.
“These were field land facilities to ultimately improve agriculture and support families and rural life so we could feed the world, really, more than anything else,” McGuire said.
The land-grant system has been seen to have many positive influences on the nation, however, the means through which the U.S. acquired the land on which the land-grant schools were built has also been the subject of moral and ethical scrutiny. To gain this land, the U.S. made treaties and acquired Native American homelands, confiscating this property to use for their own purposes, such as establishing universities and research stations.
To build the land-grant university system, the U.S. government appropriated an estimated 11 million acres of Indigenous land. UI is one of 52 land-grant institutions that is built on and funded by Indigenous land. The university occupies land that was taken between 1855 and 1873 from the Nez-Perce, Shoshone, Schitsu’umush, and Te-Moak Tribes. The general consensus is that it is beneficial to celebrate the inspired research UI is doing as a result of its status as a land-grant institution while keeping in mind the origin of the university and the millions of Native Americans whose home was reappropriated due to the University’s establishment.
The roots of the land-grant system have been argued to be corrupt and unjustifiable. However, the research done at these institutions has significantly benefitted the community and Idaho as a whole – both economic and otherwise. This is seen from land-grant universities across the country.
“All analyses that have occurred that look at the investment in research through the land-grant universities show that there is ultimately a substantial return to the taxpayer,” McGuire said.
He estimates that for every dollar invested at the UI research facilities, there is an eventual return of $5 to $10 dollars in economic benefit for the state. Through the research done that makes farming or other jobs more efficient, and the jobs provided doing research – land-grant universities have made a huge impact on the economy.
However, the reach of the land-grant research stretches far beyond economics. It’s impossible to fully calculate all the ways that the research done at the UI has made an impact on our community and our state over the years.
“(…) it makes sure there’s food on the shelf, people have clothing, people are happy, educated,” McGuire said. “There’s many more benefits than just a financial return.”
The research done through UI is not just limited to the Moscow campus. There are research facilities across Idaho that are doing groundbreaking research, especially when it comes to agricultural issues.
One such research facility is the Parma Research and Extension Center located north of Boise. This center accommodates many different programs and research projects, most with a focus on improving agricultural practices.
Michael Kiester, the operations manager at the Parma Research Center, explained how one of their most recent projects is benefiting Idaho farmers currently. They are working on testing the nematode levels in soil from different farms. This information greatly benefits farmers who can adjust how they fumigate their soil and grow their crops.
“All of it (research) is going to make economic impacts, whether it’s in the near future or distant future,” Kiester said. “It’s all going to be economically beneficial for the farmers themselves out there.”
Not only does this research have important applications in the workforce and economy, it also provides opportunities for UI students to get involved with hands-on research that accompanies their major. According to UI’s primary website, approximately 2/3 of all undergrads will participate in research at some point in their program.
Sarah Hale, a Biotechnology and Plant Genomics major and undergraduate lab assistant at UI believes that her job working on research has made a significant difference in her educational experience.
“The work I do allows me to implement a lot of the techniques that I learned in my classes and labs,” Hale said. “When you’re working on a project that you can call your own, then it makes you think more about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. You learn how to apply different techniques to solve real problems.”
Grace Giger can be reached at [email protected]