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In 1901, the University of Idaho College of Agriculture produced its first graduate, Gainford Mix, who earned a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture degree. The UI’s first classes met Oct. 10, 1892.

To help its first students meet college standards, the university offered preparatory classes. Agricultural education was an early and essential offering. H. E. Lattig of Payette, a 1915 College of Agriculture graduate, helped shape high school programs that the modern Agricultural and Extension Education Department serves today.

Many of the earliest students at the university had to travel by stagecoach and ferry to reach the campus. From Grangeville, the 100-mile route required a two-day journey.
The earliest students at UI lived off campus in boarding houses or private homes. Parents’ reluctance to send theirdaughters to Moscow without proper housing and supervision, however, led to construction of Ridenbaugh Hall. Completed in 1902, it now stands as the oldest building on campus.

In their first year, agriculture students were required to take courses that included breeds of livestock and stock breeding, and later animal hygiene, stock feeding, origin and formation of soil, dairying, and rural engineering. Students also could pursue a degree in horticulture.
Students could expect to spend $5 to $15 a year for books and fees to cover the cost of materials for various courses. Living expenses included $2 per week for table board. Nonresident students paid fees of $7.50 per semester when the College of Agriculture opened in 1901.

The university, college, and students played important roles in the nation’s efforts during World War I and World War II.Not all of the news carried by the university’s “Bi-Weekly News Letter” dealt with the war. The newsletter reported on Jan. 25, 1918, that the college’s student poultry judging team took first at the Panhandle Poultry Show in Moscow, finishing ahead of rival Washington State College. In 1946, the university shifted gears, mobilizing to accommodate returning GIs. “We are starting the promised payoff to veterans whose education was interrupted or postponed by the war,” wrote UI President J. E. Buchanan.

Duane LeTourneau, professor emeritus of bacteriology and biochemistry, arrived as a faculty member in 1953. The university then was much more paternalistic, imposing tighter controls on students. Ironically, war veterans made up a sizeable share of the student ranks, which then numbered about 3,000.

“It was a different society than it is now,” LeTourneau said. Students during the last 50 years share some of the same challenges, however. “I find these kids, no matter how sophisticated they appear, are still trying to find out who they are and where they’re going.”
The college’s students took a new direction in the 1950s, forming their first fraternity—the FarmHouse Fraternity—chartered with LeTourneau’s help. Today, the fraternity claims more than 700 alumni.

When Garth Sasser traveled north to Moscow in 1957 to begin classes at the university, he already was familiar with the campus. He had visited several times since age 13, for 4-H Congress and FFA conventions. Sasser joined FarmHouse because most of its members had agricultural backgrounds like his and because the chapter also took pride in its members’ academic accomplishments.

Sasser finished his Bachelor of Science in Agriculture degree in 1961, then went on to earn his master’s degree. He earned his Ph.D. degree at the University of California-Davis in 1967, the same year his mentor left the UI. Sasser replaced him at his alma mater, launching a UI teaching and research career that spanned 32 years, until his retirement in 1999.
The college began the millennium and celebrated the start of its second century with a graduating class of 240, a far cry from 1901 when Gainford Mix was the lone graduate. The college’s Class of 2001 included 197 with bachelor’s degrees, 34 with master’s degrees, and nine doctorate recipients.

The Margaret Ritchie School of Family and Consumer Sciences dominated the class with 64 graduates, followed by Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Education, and Animal Science with 20 grads each. Class members hailed from 31 of Idaho’s 44 counties, from 17 states and six other nations—Ghana, India, Japan, People’s Republic of China, South Korea, and Turkey.
Throughout its first century, the college’s 7,320 graduates included 5,549 with bachelor’s degrees, 1,500 with master’s, and 271 with doctorates.
 

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