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Land Grants, Extension Service and Institutional Amnesia: The University of Colorado's Forgotten Origins and Potential Futures

Land Grants, Extension Service and Institutional Amnesia: The University of Colorado's Forgotten Origins and Potential Futures

Ҵýƽ Event: Many American institutions today have become unmoored from their origins in ways that weaken their coherence and reduce their legitimacy. The 150th anniversary of the University of Colorado presents a timely opportunity to reflect on our own origins, and legacies and obligations that are too little known. If asked, “Is the University of Colorado a land grant institution?” most with an even cursory familiarity with the higher education sector would answer no—that distinction belongs to Colorado State University, the state's official Morrill Act designee. However, this assumption obscures a more complex and consequential reality.

Ҵýƽ began when Colorado's 1875 Enabling Act allocated approximately 43,000 acres of federal land for the new university—lands that had been systematically appropriated from Indigenous Peoples before being distributed to build the state's educational infrastructure. For nearly 100 years, in compliance with the obligations derived from the federal land grant and nineteenth-century conceptions of the state university, CU embraced a comprehensive public service mission through its Extension Division, helping to establish municipal governments, community colleges, and civic organizations across Colorado. Then, in the decades following World War II, that identity was increasingly eclipsed by federal research partnerships and the quest for national and international prestige.

This panel brings together three scholars whose work illuminates different dimensions of this history and its implications for higher education today. Together, they will explore how the fading of institutional memory regarding CU's land grant origins and history of direct service has obscured important obligations—both to the Indigenous Peoples whose dispossession made its founding possible and to the Colorado communities it once served as a matter of constitutional mandate. At a moment when universities face declining public trust, volatile federal funding, and fundamental questions about their civic role, recovering this history offers more than historical correction. It clarifies the kinds of structural commitments—shared governance with communities, accountable partnership practices, and material engagement with Indigenous Nations—that could rebuild institutional legitimacy over the long term.

Grounded in archival research and in conversation with historical and legal scholarship, this presentation will challenge participants to reconsider what obligations flow from CU's actual origins. It will also explore what was lost when extension work was phased out in the 1970s, what innovative approaches to statewide engagement have developed since—sometimes fitfully but persistently—and what opportunities emerge from reconnecting with Colorado's diverse communities.

As we mark our sesquicentennial year, this panel asks not whether Ҵýƽ is a land grant institution with a mission of direct public service—the historical record is clear—but what it would mean to reclaim that identity today. This is a unique moment to integrate our research excellence with renewed commitment to direct community engagement, honoring both our founding obligations and Colorado's contemporary needs. The question before us is how we can build the relationships, momentum, and shared vision to make this future real.

Date: January 29, 2026 @ 5:00 - 6:15 pm
See schedule of events and more information on on their website linked.