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History of the Graduate CollegeThe Graduate College is one of Iowa State’s oldest academic divisions. Founded in 1916 to support graduate study in the university’s land-grant areas of agriculture, engineering, home economics, and veterinary science, our mission has expanded to include a broad range of departmental and interdisciplinary programs in virtually all of Iowa State’s academic divisions. From a handful of graduate scholars, within ten years of its founding the Graduate College was supervising nearly 700 students from a wide array of American and international undergraduate institutions. While Iowa State did not award its first PhD until 1916, by 1950 the college had conferred no fewer than 1,000 doctorates, a figure that would rise to 5,000 by 1972 and 10,000 by 1991. This steadily accelerating pace in degrees awarded reflected the university’s recognition of the dynamic and inextricable relationship of graduate education to advanced research and innovation. Indeed, in 1961—midway through the college’s history to date—this relationship was formalized when J. Boyd Page, dead of the Graduate College, was named the university’s vice president for research. The two positions would remain in the same office for the next 43 years, with the college’s dean being appointed as associate provost for research and then, in 1989, vice provost for research. In 2004, this continuing growth culminated in the formal separation of the Office of the Vice Provost for Research and the Graduate College into two distinct positions, with the dean of the Graduate College assuming the position of associate provost for academic programs. It was a timely restructuring of duties, as today the Graduate College is responsible for more than 140 distinct programs across the entire spectrum of the university’s schools and colleges, including interdisciplinary and certificate programs, as well as for coordinating academic programming between the university’s undergraduate and graduate divisions. |
Central campus is home to ISU's distinctive campanile, several wireless access points, and dozens of events throughout the year. |
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