Iowa State University was created by the Iowa General Assembly in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm. It was designated Iowa's land-grant institution in 1862 and held its first classes in 1869. It was renamed the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in 1898 and became Iowa State University of Science and Technology in 1959. Today, Iowa State is a broad-based university of international stature, with an enrollment of approximately 25,000, including students from all 50 states and more than 120 other nations, and a record number of minority students. The Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree is offered by the College of Veterinary Medicine.
Instruction is offered throughout the year.
Research productivity is also setting records. For the past several years, ISU has ranked among the top 10 research universities in the nation in the number of patents earned and income from intellectual property. That's more than any other university in the nation. Iowa State has one of the most extensive and sophisticated campus-wide computer networks in the nation. Named for John Vincent Atanasoff, who invented the electronic digital computer while a professor at Iowa State in the late 1930s, Project Vincent's more than 1,000 workstations connect ISU researchers and students to high-speed computing centers on campus, to each other, and to outside data bases and supercomputers.