A New Vison

We are working on a new vision for our university's course.

We have posted resources to learn more about the AgriSol partnership, the land grant mission, the conflict of interest and other policies, and other resources on our resource page.

In addition, we have posted information from the archives of former ISU President Parks, including his statement made in the wake of the Kent State massacre about the need for an open campus, his commencement speech from May 1970 calling for an open university and sharing a prophetic vision about the threats of losing the public control of the university, and other information.

"I will continue to exert every effort to insure that Iowa State University will remain an open campus where differing views may be freely expressed, challenged, and debated. I ask for your help in keeping our University an open campus. I ask you to help me resist pressures which would make this University a closed and oppressive campus."
Pres. Parks, Excerpts from an Impromptu Remarks at Peace Rally on ISU campus following Veisha Parade May 9, 1970

"In speaking of an "open" university, I meant only one thing. I was simply saying that the university has no greater purpose than to keep its doors open and to be the place in society where people can express opposing points of view."
Pres. Parks in an interview with the IA State Daily May 1970

"As we move into the seventies, therefore, the public universities, as vital and central institutions in a deeply divided society, will face trying and difficult times. In the decade ahead, the pressures from the political extremes to change the nature and character of the public university will continue to mount. It will be a period in which the public university will probably be under the threat of having its educational values and standards compromised, its functions whittled away, its public financial support eroded from beneath it.

Whether the universities in the seventies will continue to be free and open and impartial centers of learning, whether they will continue to receive public financial support will, I believe, depend on you."
Pres. Parks commencement address "You and the Public University" May 29, 1970