As was generally the case in the history of land grant universities, entomology was a subject of importance at the University of Illinois in its early years. However, due to the philosophy and position of key personalities, particularly first department head Stephen A. Forbes, the field at UIUC followed a trajectory different from that at most land grant campuses. Courses in entomology were first offered through the Department of Natural History, which ultimately became part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. This association with a College of LAS, rather than a College of Agriculture, the more typical home of entomology, influenced the ways in which the Department has carried out its tripartite landgrant mission. For almost a century, pioneering research efforts developed insects as model systems across the biological sciences, including, among others, Bombyx mori and other Lepidoptera for coevolutionary studies, Tribolium confusum for nutritional physiology, Culex species for model ecosystems in environmental science, Periplaneta americana for robotics, and Apis mellifera for genomics and sociobiology. As well, the department has been innovative in grounding entomological instruction in basic biology, offering, for example, the first courses nationally in insect physiology and insect genomics as these subdisciplines developed. Associations within the College have also led to innovations in outreach that emphasize insects in a cultural context, culminating in the Insect Fear Film Festival, entering its 24th year. Thus, the department has cleaved to the philosophy of its first administrator, about whom successor Clell Metcalf wrote, "history, music, art, politics, languages, literature, agriculture, horticulture, world affairs, the social sciences-he studied them all in order to relate his own work most effectively to the material and intellectual progress of his state."