The Ames Lab’s recent marking of its 65th anniversary reminds us of Iowa State’s multitude of contributions to the world beyond campus. Over the years, the Ames Lab contributed to uranium enrichment for the Manhattan Project, high-performance computer research, organic polymers and other scientific innovations.

Those contributions are in line with Iowa State being a land-grant university. When he visited the Daily earlier this year, President Steven Leath defined land-grant universities in terms of what distinguishes them from other universities: their public responsibility.

With changes in university administration, from Leath to his new senior vice president and provost, dean of students, registrar and others, the new administration will be faced with making decisions that will put Iowa State on some new path or continue pressing in its existing direction.

We will be interested to see, as the university’s model becomes increasingly a business, rather than academic, model, whether we will still be celebrating the same legacy in another

65 years.