NHAES - BACKGROUND AND HISTORY
U.S. Land Grant Colleges were established by the federal Morrill Land-Grant College Act of 1862. The mostly private higher institutions of the time focused primarily on law, philosophy, medicine and theology, and higher education was not accessible to most citizens. In contrast, these new public colleges were charged to provide a broad intellectual education to ‘the masses’, and to specifically include foci in agriculture and the mechanic arts (now engineering). New Hampshire accepted the provisions of the Land Grant College Act that same year. The state thereby received a grant of land from the federal government, to be sold or auctioned, the proceeds of which to be used to create the land grant college having the specified mission - hence the name ‘land grant’ college, now university. In New Hampshire the college was initially created as a part of the existing institution at Dartmouth. Unhappy with the early performance of the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts at Dartmouth, Durham farmer and businessman Benjamin Thompson willed his farm to the state under the condition that they establish a school to promote the cause of agriculture. By 1893, the college and associated NH Agricultural Experiment Station (below) moved from Hanover to Durham, anchoring what is now UNH.
Twenty five years later in 1887, the federal Hatch Act was passed in response for the need for a vibrant agricultural research enterprise at each Land Grant College, creating the system of State Agricultural Experiment Stations. The New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station (NHAES) was established that year, still at Dartmouth. The initial funding for experiment stations proved inadequate to fulfill the expectations of the Hatch Act, and as a consequence, several supplementary legislative statutes followed to increase their funding. Notably, the Bankhead-Jones Act of 1935 established formula funding rather than yearly re-allocations of uncertain budget dollars, and required the states to match federal dollars toward AES research. The ‘formula’ or ‘capacity’ funding allocates the federal budget amount to individual state experiment stations and thereby provides a means (capacity) to support the considerable agricultural infractructure required to undertake meaningful research having relevance to both state and national needs. In 1955, the Hatch Act of 1887 was amended to consolidate all previous laws that provided federal-grant funds for the operation of State Agricultural Experiment Stations, and more recent statutes have also continued to support the mission. In 1962, the McIntire-Stennis Cooperative Forestry Research Act was passed to encourage forestry research at Land Grant Colleges. Also, as of 1997, all State Agricultural Experiment Stations are mandated to expend 25% of the formula funds on multi-state/multi-institutional projects.
Forty two years following establishment of the Land Grant system, the federal Smith-Lever Act of 1914 responded to a need to more effectively extend the findings of the research conducted by the state agricultural experiment stations to relevant stakeholders. It established the Cooperative Extension Service and provided federal funds for Extension activities at the Land Grant institutions. As with the Hatch Act, states are required to provide a 1:1 match from non-federal resources.
This completed the ‘three-legged stool’ that is often used as analogy for the Land Grant institutions. Each of the three missions - teaching, research, and extension - are critical components of the modern land grant university, and each comprises distinct entities with specific statutory mission but which are intended to collaborate closely. When these enterprises work seamlessly together, the differentiation is often unapparent to consumers including students, stakeholders, and citizens. Many within the university community - faculty, staff and others - are similarly unaware of the background and fundamental multifaceted integration within the Land Grant Universities mandate.
Along with the other state agricultural experiment stations, the NHAES has transitioned over the years in response to state and national goals and statutes, along with societal, budgetary and other forces. While we comprise a formative and fundamental aspect of UNH and the national network of land grant institutions, and we provide outstanding services to local, state, national and international stakeholders, our background and history are often not well understood. We hope this has provided a useful sense of our relationships and mandates, as core participants in THE Land Grant University of New Hampshire.
