Editor’s note: This is the tenth article in a 10-part series examining significant events and the climate of the campus at Iowa State in each of this century’s decades. The stories are based on articles from the Daily during those time periods. Today’s article will look at the years 1990-1999.

The 1990s at Iowa State were a time of prosperity and growth marked with occasional tragedy and turmoil.

The decade began with the resignation of Gordon Eaton, who left in October of 1990 to take a position in a geological observatory at Columbia University. His replacement was ISU’s current president, Martin Jischke.

Jischke possessed the same sense of long-term planning and vision that had been a strength of Eaton. Under his direction, ISU in the 1990s became a world leader in science and technology — on the cutting edge of many fields, especially those dealing with agriculture and engineering.

During Jischke’s tenure, campus construction once again became a priority. Often funded heavily by private donations (which surged to record-setting levels by the end of the decade), many buildings sprung up during the 1990s, including the Lied Recreation Center, the new Student Health Center, the Jacobsen Building and Howe Hall. Plans for several other new buildings to be opened in the early 2000s also were formulated.

Jischke often repeated that his goal for ISU was to become the “best land-grant university in the nation.” Although that goal of returning to ISU’s roots was noble, the implications of the steps taken to get there were heavily debated during the mid-1990s.

Many students and professors claimed ISU’s renewed emphasis on its original purpose was destroying the strong foundation of humanities and liberal arts that W. Robert Parks had established during his 21-year tenure at ISU.

The Daily editorialized to this tune in 1993, predicting tongue-in-cheek that by 1999 all majors besides agriculture and engineering at ISU would be abolished and that students graduating in those fields would possess only “fifth-grade reading levels.”

But for the most part, students and faculty celebrated the growth of the university and its emergence as a national leader in academics.

Enrollment stabilized during the decade at about 25,000 students, although it sometimes peaked as high as 26,000.

And though the decade was in general quiet and peaceful, with much of the student body apathetic about such issues as the Gulf War and other world conflicts, the 1990s did see its share of student activism and involvement.

The Government of the Student Body continually fought increases in tuition and room and board during the 1990s, complaining (usually to no avail) that the Board of Regents often approved hikes much larger than necessary considering the low rate of inflation and overall strong economy.

Sexual assault and AIDS became hot-button issues for students during the early 1990s. Many student groups formed to attempt to educate female and male students on sexual assault. AIDS was also the subject of much discussion.

Without a doubt, however, the most prolific student uprising of the decade was The September 29th Movement. Beginning on Sept. 29, 1995, with an article in the activist newsletter Uhuru, students bonded together to protest naming the newly renovated old Botany Hall after Carrie Chapman Catt, an ISU graduate who was an early advocate of women’s rights. Movement members claimed Catt made racist and xenophobic comments during her years fighting for women’s suffrage.

Led by a core group of high-profile students such as Milton McGriff, Meron Wondwosen and Allan Nosworthy, the Movement pushed for removing Catt’s name from Old Botany and asked for administrators to take several other steps to increase campus diversity.

The group, which at the height of its arc included hundreds of students, sparked a bitter controversy on the ISU campus that was never truly reconciled. In the three strong years the Movement existed on campus, there were sit-ins conducted at Beardshear Hall, hunger strikes held, rallies on central campus staged, Department of Justice agents brought in to mediate discussions and fiery debate penned on the editorial pages of the Daily.

Nothing substantive ever came of the Movement, though, and Catt Hall still stands today.

The Movement may have been the most prolific student activism of the decade, but the issue most pressing in the minds of the student body was probably Veishea.

After the riots of 1985 and 1988, administrators and law enforcement officials in the 1990s attempted to crack down on the excessive alcohol use and sprawling Mardi Gras-type atmosphere that had begun to be synonymous with the annual student-run celebration.

But their efforts failed, as students rioted in 1992 and again in 1994. As the spring celebration became more and more saturated with alcohol and violence, its future became unclear. Nearly every year during the decade saw speculation of whether Veishea would be canceled.

Finally, an event too tragic and violent to ignore occurred during the Veishea of 1997. Early Sunday morning, as the three-day party began to wind down, out-of-towner Harold “Uri” Sellers was fatally stabbed on the lawn of Adelante fraternity.

Subsequently, President Jischke declared in the fall of 1997 that the celebration must be alcohol-free. This was decried by many students who felt their “right to drink” was being infringed. But Jischke stuck to his guns, and faced with either ending the Veishea tradition or approving a dry Veishea, student government bodies representing every faction of campus chose to stand behind Jischke in support of his proposal.

As the decade ended, students appeared to be for the most part unconcerned about entering the year 2000. Most students shirked visions of the world collapsing due to the “Y2K crisis,” and few believed the turn of the century held any religious implications.

It is with a bright and promising future ahead of them and a storied and magnificent history behind them that the students of Iowa State University enter the next century.