Letter From the President
Working together, we grow together. Collaboration leads to better results — for our students, our community and our state. It is through collaboration that we effectively invest in the impactful education, discovery and service that helps Idaho thrive.
These partnerships are the focus of the Spring 2021 issue of Here We Have Idaho magazine. We spotlight the iconic ICCU Arena, the soon-to-be home of Vandal Basketball and community events. The arena showcases mass-timber construction and our mutually beneficial relationship with Idaho’s wood industry.
We are uniquely positioned to lead environmental resilience in Idaho and that begins with the work happening on our own campus. Infrastructure improvements to our steam plant and utility system are driven by student projects — like the work of an undergraduate senior design team that found ways to realize energy savings. These projects are enhanced by the public-private partnership involving those assets that will fund scholarship and research initiatives over the next half-century. The energy savings, profiled here, will be captured over the next 20 years as student ingenuity and industry best practices come together.
Finding common ground with industry, environmental groups and government agencies has led to partnerships that nurture better forest management practices. The U.S. Forest Service, with the help of U of I researchers, is finding success by including wide-ranging stakeholders in discussions about harvest and restoration efforts.
Sustainable solutions power the University of Idaho Hydroponics Club, which has long provided fresh produce to university dining services during the winter months and recently branched out to assist others with the logistics of growing vegetables indoors. The savings of water, time and space create new, sustainable options for small-scale agriculture.
Each of these stories, and others you’ll find in this issue of Here We Have Idaho, demonstrate the work Vandals do today that helps Vandals tomorrow. They demonstrate our commitment to serve our Vandal Family and the Gem State for generations to come.
Go Vandals!
Published in the Spring 2021 issue of Here We Have Idaho.
