UAF: a Land, Sea and Space Grant institution

Founded in 1917 as the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines, the University of Alaska Fairbanks is Alaska's only land grant college and one of only a handful of institutions in the country with land, sea, and space grant status. The Morrill Land Grant Act, signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, created land grant colleges as "the people's universities," and in 1906 the U.S. Department of Agriculture established a 1,400-acre agricultural experiment station in Fairbanks on a site that later became part of the UAF campus. The National Sea Grant College Program Act of 1966 laid the foundation for university research, education, and outreach in the wise use and conservation of marine and coastal resources, and the University of Alaska received sea grant college status in 1980, with the Alaska Sea Grant College Program hosted by UAF as part of a national network serving ocean coast and Great Lakes states and Puerto Rico. In 1991, UAF was designated a space grant institution through the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Act, and its Poker Flat Research Range, 30 miles north of Fairbanks and operated by the UAF Geophysical Institute under contract to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is the world's only university-owned scientific rocket launching facility.

College, Alaska · United States