Affirming the Morrill Act for a
Twenty-first-century Global Society

The approaching 2012 sesquicentennial of the signing of the Morrill Act provides an occasion to celebrate the enduring power of the land-grant vision of higher education as an instrument of individual, social, and economic transformation in this nation.

The Morrill Act created a new type of higher education institution in the 19th century.

Now, the most pressing need in higher education is to encourage universities to evolve in ways that align them more effectively to advance the public good—to affirm the ideals of the Morrill Act and its core values through each institution’s commitments and actions, regardless of its roots.

I invite you to learn more about what I call the World Grant Ideal by reading Embracing the World Grant Ideal: Affirming the Morrill Act for a Twenty-first-century Global Society on this site.

I also invite you to react to and comment about the ideas in the monograph and my call to other universities to join in the journey toward which Michigan State University has been moving for more than 150 years. I would find your thoughts as well as examples and vignettes of how you are implementing the World Grant Ideal vision in your work valuable as, even in these extraordinarily challenging times, MSU continues to lead the work to affirm and to extend beyond our borders the core values of the Morrill Act as the inspiration and fuel for higher education’s engagement with a global society in this century. Use ideas@worldgrant.msu.edu for this purpose. I am proud of MSU’s unique and distinguished history. It has been built with the passion, confidence, courage, and sense of the greater good that are also hallmarks of today’s faculty, staff, students, and many friends. Thank you.

Lou Anna K. Simon
President

Read Embracing the World Grant Ideal

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