“…The very fact that as a college, the [Graduate College] cuts across and is superimposed upon all other colleges of the university, using the best of [its] staff and facilities to carry out its own program of advanced study and research for selected students, is the best justification for its existence. In addition, to the advantages of this type of organization for the graduate program, it is of incalculable value to the University as a whole. It is in the graduate program that the student’s research becomes intermingled with the research of the staff. Not only the students, but the staff members as well, benefit from the experiences, judgments, and exchange of views of staff members from other departments with whom they would not ordinarily come into close contact. All of this cross-fertilization instills life and vigor into the whole program of faculty research, much of which would be lost if the graduate program were compartmentalized in the other administrative units of the University.” 

- excerpt from The Nebraska Alumnus, 1955