The authors explore the role that public and land-grant universities play in sciences, engineering, arts and design (SEAD). They combine a networked institutional history of art and technology collaborations with an ethnographic study of SEAD initiatives. They use the notion of land-grant hybrids to describe widespread entanglements between research, teaching and public engagement. Their study identifies three “matters of concern” that aid in rethinking the origins, current practices and possible futures of SEAD: disparities in sponsored collaboration, the need for hybrid practitioners to demonstrate measurable impact and the ambiguities of what counts as appropriate art and reputable research.