Schindler Education Center 2017

College of Education

Schindler Education Center Schindler Education Center Rededication Friday, March 31, 2017 • 3 p.m.

Dr. Ken Budke Family Auditorium, Schindler Education Center

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A 21st century education center Schindler undergoes extensive renovations ‌CEDAR FALLS — It’s been more than 40 years since the Schindler Education Center was first built on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa. At the time, it was the first building to serve as a central hub for students and faculty in the College of Education, even though the university had been preparing educators as far back as 1876.

The building was, at the time, heralded as a state-of-the-art education center designed to serve the changing philosophies and methods of teacher education.

But in the four decades since, things have changed. What was once at the forefront of teacher education in higher education had become outdated, no longer able to serve the needs of modern students who would be expected to lead classrooms in the 21st century.

When Schindler was in need of an upgrade, extensive renovations commenced in the summer of 2015. Over the next 18 months, the building was gutted as part of an extensive redesign spearheaded by individuals specializing in educational facilities. Hundreds of different people — including architects, designers, engineers, plumbers, electricians and construction specialists, many of them from the local area — worked together to renovate the entire building.

The goal was to transform outdated classrooms and dingy lecture halls into more flexible and collaborative learning spaces.

Chalkboards, now a relic of a bygone era, would be replaced with interactive television monitors and other active learning technologies.

These upgrades would not only enhance the student experience at UNI, but also bolster the education field in Iowa and beyond by equipping future educators with effective and innovative teaching methods.

The student lounge areas have also been enhanced to create a more welcoming atmosphere, in particular the G.R.E.A.T. Room, or Gerdin Resource Exchange for the Advancement of Teaching. When you walk into the building, you’re greeted with a variety of comfortable seating options, not to mention abundant daylighting from the clerestory. If you need a quick bite to eat, the bistro “Schindigs” is located on the main level.

On that same level is HNI Corporation Instructional Resource and Technology Services (IRTS), where students can develop learning experiences for their classrooms using different resources.

These include lesson plans, curriculum, books, reference materials and technology.

The student services offices have also been organized along the same curved corridor on the lower level of the building, allowing for ease of access. All of the students’ needs Exterior of Schindler Education Center are in one place, from academic advisers to the teacher education office to the Department of Teaching.

The renovations also incorporated sustainability practices to earn an anticipated LEED™ Gold for Interiors rating. These updates included a green roof garden, LED lighting throughout the building, new energy-efficient mechanical systems and low VOC emitting materials for improved air quality.

The building is now expected to be 32 percent more energy efficient, which will lead to an estimated annual savings of $184,000 each year in reduced operating costs.

UNI PHOTO‌S

A special thank you to: DLR Group, architect of record Stantec, design architect Mortensen Construction, Construction ManagerStantee, design architect Mortensen Co

The renovated Schindler Education Center incorporates sustainability and energy efficiency, as well as abundant daylight from the clerestory.

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Brief history of Schindler Education Center ‌CEDAR FALLS — The University of Northern Iowa has been preparing educators since 1876, when it was first established as the Iowa State Normal School.

But it wasn’t until the 1960s that leadership at the university recognized the need for a building on campus to house the teacher education program. Previously, these students and their faculty had been spread out across campus.

In July 1965, the Iowa Board of Regents approved funding for an education center that was to be completed in two phases. Together, these two phases would amount to a six-story structure designed to include two large lecture auditoriums, flexible teaching spaces, administrative and faculty offices, classrooms, a media center and clinics.

The Waterloo architecture firm Thorson, Brom, Broshar and Snyder (now called InVision Architecture) provided master planning, programming, design and construction services for both phases of the education center.

Construction of the first phase was completed in the fall of 1972, followed by completion of the second phase in the fall of 1973.

At the time, the building was considered a state-of-the-art education center. Each of the 35 classrooms featured a 25-inch color television monitor. These monitors were connected to a sophisticated communication center located in the basement of the building. This system enabled instructors to show a film or group of slides on the monitors by simply telephoning a staff member working in the commu-

nication center.

The classrooms were also designed to be flexible. Movable soundproof walls allowed for a variety of different teaching arrangements, affording instructors the ability to create classrooms that best suited their needs and conformed to visual aid requirements.

Following a formal dedication ceremony on April 8, 1976, the building was simply referred to as the Education Center for thenext 14 years. That is, until the building was named for alumnus Alvin W. Schindler on May 13, 1990. Schindler graduated from the Iowa State Teachers College in 1927, and his wife, UNI PHOTO‌ Dora Hood Schindler, also an alumna, donated $1 million to Dora Schindler, left, was present at the naming of the Education Center UNI in the memory of her late for her late husband, Alvin Schindler, on May 13, 1990. Both Schindlers were UNI alums. husband.

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140 years of educating Iowa’s educators ‌CEDAR FALLS — Preparing educators is an integral part of the University of Northern Iowa, and has been for over 140 years.

The university’s teacher education program has roots dating as far back as the 1870s, and the program has only grown stronger in the years since.

UNI was first established as the Iowa State Normal School in 1876, when Black Hawk County legislators proposed turning a soon-to-be empty orphanage into a public training school for teachers. The school’s mission was to graduate students who had mastered a variety of academic subjects and become proficient in the most effective teaching methods.

As early as 1883, the Normal School offered a model school where student teachers could ob-

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UNI’s teacher education program instructs future teachers using innovative educational practices. serve, learn and participate in advanced teaching techniques. Student teaching became an important part of prospective teachers’ training, and still is to this day. Though the Malcolm Price Laboratory School

closed in 2012, teaching students still participate in extensive field experiences — in rural, urban and suburban classroom settings in the state, across the U.S. and around the globe.

Taking greater over-

sight over Iowa’s educational institutions, the state legislature sought to ensure there was no overlap in the fields of study among each institution.

So in 1904, the school began to offer a Bachelor of

UNI’s impact across state of Iowa ‌I n 1876, when the University of Northern Iowa was first established as the Iowa State Normal School, its initial purpose was to serve as a training school for Iowa’s public teachers. In its first year, the Iowa State Normal School had a total enrollment of just 27 students.

Today, total enrollment at the university is close to 12,000 students, with more than 450 new teachers graduating from UNI each year.

That kind of output allows UNI to claim the unique distinction of having the largest education program in the state of Iowa.

But the impact that UNI’s

education program has on the state of Iowa extends well beyond the number of educators who walk across the stage at commencement each semester.

Just last year, 99 percent of graduating teachers were employed or continuing their education within six months of graduation. In addition to finding success quickly after graduating, many of these Panthers are starting their teaching careers right here in Iowa.

In fact, nine out of 10 UNI students choose to stay in Iowa after graduating.

More than 9,200 UNI graduates are currently working in school districts across the

state. To break it down even further, UNI graduates teach in all 99 counties of Iowa and in 98 percent of the state’s school districts. The Panther footprint across Iowa is unmistakable.

In preparing these future educators, UNI also partners with Iowa school districts for student teaching placements, in addition to 11 field experience centers throughout the state.

For 140 years, UNI has been serving the students of Iowa and preparing the educators of tomorrow, and the university’s commitment to that mission— even with the addition of other academic programs — will only grow stronger in the years to come.

Arts in Education degree, and just five years later, the school would be re-named to the Iowa State Teachers College.

In 1950, the Iowa State Teachers College introduced its first graduate courses. The courses were in response to a number of Iowa school teachers and administrators who had expressed an interest in strengthening their skills beyond the level of a bachelor’s degree.

But in the early 1960s, a survey showed that a significant portion of graduates were not becoming teachers. Thus, the school was renamed the State College of Iowa in 1961, when the college also began offering liberal arts (or non-teaching) degrees.

The new name lasted until 1967, when the university became known as the University of North-

ern Iowa. Two years later, the Education Department was divided into three different divisions: Education Psychology and Social Foundations; Curriculum and Instruction; and School Administration and Personnel Services.

The Department of Teaching, which had been created in 1914, was separate from the Education Department and stood alongside the three new departments. Today, this department serves the teacher education program and works collaboratively with educators in Iowa and across the globe on research and innovative educational practices.

To supplement the undergraduate and graduate programs, the university also added the Doctor of Education degree in 1982, amid growing support for a doctoral program at UNI.

Congratulations,

University of Northern Iowa!

The Schindler Education Center renovation is innovative and enriching.

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Gerdin family leads support for Schindler Education Center

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Many families have multiple generations of teachers who have graduated from UNI.

Educating teachers across generations ‌Kristyn Wilson first visited the University of Northern Iowa based on her interest in education, but it certainly helped that she wasn’t the first Panther from her family.

Kristyn graduated from UNI in 2012, following in the footsteps of her mother, Mary Crist Wilson, and her grandmother, Catharine Barker Crist. Mary graduated from UNI in 1982, and Catharine graduated from the Iowa State Teachers College in 1955.

One of her favorite memories is when her grandmother attended her convocation ceremony.

“She was so proud of me,” Kristyn said. “She was so proud that I chose to be an educator.

My grandma saw two of her three granddaughters graduate with degrees in education from UNI, and she would always find a way to fit that fact into a conversation.”

Kristyn and her family are but one example of how the teacher education program at UNI has stretched across generations over the last 140 years, often graduating students who are just the latest educator in a family that has no shortage of them.

Much like Kristyn, Marcia Knupp wasn’t the first member of her family to graduate from the

College of Education at UNI, but she also wasn’t the last.

Marcia graduated from UNI in 1996 with an education degree.

Her grandmother, Ruth Jesse Palmer, graduated with a certificate in primary education from the Iowa State Teachers College. Her aunt, Carol Brandt, received her two-year teaching certificate from UNI. And her daughter, Brooke Beninga, graduated from UNI with a teaching degree in 2002.

She recalls listening to her grandmother and aunt tell stories about their respective teaching experiences and credits UNI with helping to shape her 20year teaching career. Seeing her daughter follow the same path is a special opportunity that is not lost on her.

“I can tell you that I feel great pride that my daughter is a teacher,” said Marcia. “I believe she has grown as a person because of her teaching experience, as have I. Teaching has been a big part of my life and I am thankful for this path.”

For Kristyn, Marcia and their families, teacher education at UNI is more than a program.

It’s a family, in more ways than one.

‌CEDAR FALLS — Donors to the renovation of the Schindler Education Center have invested more than $7 million to transform the College of Education at the University of Northern Iowa.

Leading the way was the Gerdin Family Foundation with a gift of $3.655 million that created the Gerdin G.R.E.A.T. Room and Gerdin Gardens.

“Our family is pleased to support the Schindler Education Center renovation project,” said Julie Gerdin Durr, a UNI alumna and spokesperson for the family.

“UNI is nationally known for its outstanding teacher education program. We wanted to be certain this facility reflected the high quality education that occurs inside the building.”

The G.R.E.A.T. Room, or Gerdin Resource Exchange for the Advancement of Teaching, is the central learning commons area where students are able to engage in diverse learning activities. The family’s gift provided for the addition of clerestory windows that flood the open Learning Stairs with natural light. The stairs connect the new west entrance to the colorful second floor G.R.E.A.T. Room and east entrance and provide interesting, open seating where students can congregate.

A new, green roof garden was built at the family’s suggestion and will serve as a learning center for future teachers.

The family’s gift also provided for the replacement of every window in the building with bright, new insulating glass, a big part of why Schindler Education Center is projected to be 32 percent more energy efficient and move the facility closer to obtaining an expected LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) gold certification.

“The Gerdin family’s gift will transform teacher education opportunities at UNI,” said

Generous donors Additional leadership gifts to the Schindler Education Center renovation were made by these generous donors:

Lisa Baronio, vice president for Pauline Barrett advancement at UNI and president of the UNI Foundation.

Dr. Ken Budke Family “We are enormously thankful Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust for their generosity and vision in addressing the need for learning Drs. Melville and Judith Marspaces that cultivate exploration, shall Finkelstein creativity and innovation in edShirley Haakinson Hewlett ucation.” and Dale Hewlett The Gerdin family, from Solon, is known for their philanthropy HNI Corporation across the state. The late Russ Roger and Barbara Kueter Gerdin founded Heartland Express, a truckload carrier based in R.J. McElroy Trust North Liberty, Iowa. Russ was a Schumacher Elevator Comtrue visionary and pioneer in the pany trucking industry and a community leader.

Sue Stedman Russ’ wife Ann and their Gifts for the renovation of children, Michael Gerdin and Schindler Education Center his wife, Nicole; Julie Durr and were made through the UNI her husband, Eric; and Angela Foundation.

Janssen and her husband, Brian, continue Russ’ philanthropic legacy, supporting numerous organizations throughout Iowa. the Schindler Education Center The investment made by the renovation is the single largest Gerdin Family Foundation in gift to the project

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Centers shaping the future of education ‌Outreach and collaboration are essential to a thriving education program. To impact the future of education, a university needs to look beyond the students that are on campus and also engage with the educators who are teaching in Iowa and across the country.

To help build a bridge between past, present and future educators, UNI’s renovated Schindler Education Center contains a number of specialized areas created to foster collaboration between students and practicing teachers who are interested in further developing their skills and learning new approaches to teaching.

These areas, which are clustered together on the lower level of Schindler, include: the Northern Iowa Instructional Center, the Richard O. Jacobson Center for Comprehensive Literacy, the Reading Recovery

Center of Iowa, the Regents Center for Early Developmental Education and the Center for Educational Transformation.

The Northern Iowa Instructional Center (NIIC) is a collaborative resource center housed within the Department of Special Education, focused on the reflective practice of teaching in inclusive education for children and students from birth through the 12th grade. Its flagship practicum programs provide students with an intensive classroom experience, including close collaboration and guidance from UNI faculty and NIIC supervisory staff.

The Richard O. Jacobson Center for Comprehensive Literacy is named after Richard O. Jacobson, a Des Moines businessman whose financial contributions to UNI funded the center. This center is focused on improving literacy for all Iowa

UNI PHOTO‌

students, and works closely with Iowa schools.

The Reading Recovery Center of Iowa was renovated to include an observation room where students and teachers

Field experience applies theory to practice ‌One of the essentials elements that defines the teacher education program is the series of professional field experience opportunities education students undertake throughout their academic careers at the University of Northern Iowa.

Before any of these “pre-service educators” begins student teaching, they will have already accumulated more than 100 hours of classroom experience in diverse settings. It is these experiences that provide an early foundation for good teaching.

This is not a new concept, but UNI has enriched this aspect of their program by developing meaningful partnerships with schools across Iowa, throughout the country and around the world.

Within these partner schools, UNI students are afforded the opportunity to apply theory to practice, assume greater responsibility in the classroom, receive feedback from a UNI faculty supervisor and a mentor teacher, reflect on their experience and take ownership of their own growth.

And students are placed in the grade level and discipline that mosts interest them early on, to ensure they’re able to make an informed decision about their future.

Compared to other majors in the teacher education program, early childhood education students are required to complete a more extensive set of field experiences.

These students are required to spend 40 hours working

with children ages 3 through 5 in child care centers, followed by field experience in infant and toddler classrooms, and another 40 hours in Head Start and Statewide Voluntary Preschool classrooms.

From these experiences, students are tasked with developing learning experiences or learning centers that can later be implemented under the supervision of a teacher or faculty member.

In total, early childhood education students complete a minimum of 190 hours of field experience. If those same students also major in elementary education, that minimum increases to 240 hours of field experience, which has a significant impact on their development.

can observe and study how different children learn to read and write. This goes hand-in-hand with the center’s mission to reduce the number of first-grade students who have extreme

difficulty learning to read and write.

The Regents’ Center for Early Developmental Education is dedicated to improving early childhood education in Iowa and beyond. The center seeks to improve children’s growth and development through the use of active engagement with physical and social environments.

The Center for Educational Transformation, established in 2013 with support from the Roy. J. Carver Charitable Trust, leads education research conducted by faculty and education practitioners investigating and disseminating innovative practice to educators across the state and around the country.

Collectively, these centers are helping strengthen the education field across the state by promoting growth and development for educators both present and future.

Congratulations to UNI on a successful project!

The project was truly an impressive transformation to the Schindler Education Center and will be a great addition to an already beautiful campus.

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Students, faculty offer their reactions to renovated Schindler For 18 months, many students and faculty in the College of Education were left without a home while extensive renovations were conducted inside the Schindler Education Center.

While UNI students, faculty, staff and alumni were all excited to see how the decades-old center would be transformed into a state-of-the-art teaching facility, it was the students and faculty in the education program that would be most impacted by the updates.

David Schmid, assistant professor in educational leadership and postsecondary education, is excited to have a modern teaching space that lives up to its unofficial nickname.

“I have been on the campus since 1998 and I always heard Schindler referred to as the

‘spaceship.’ Now that I am a faculty member and teaching in Schindler, it is great to have the classrooms and the look be truly one of the space age,” said Schmid.

Hunter Flesch, a junior elementary education major, believes the renovations have breathed new life into a building, and the positive effect has been unmistakable.

“The new remodel has revitalized the education students,” said Flesch. “I walk into a bright building that is buzzing with my peers who are all collaborating and working together. I feel like when I am in Schindler I am in a school full of motivated teachers, which makes me really feel at home here at UNI.” Amy Lockhart, assistant professor in the Department of

Teaching, has high praise for the thought process behind the redesign, particularly how light and color have transformed the space.

“In a profession where collaboration is more important than it has ever been before, this new building promotes collaboration, for both students and faculty,” said Lockhart. “The dark, unwelcoming spaces of the old SEC are gone and have been replaced with colorful, bright areas.”

According to Gaëtane Jean-Marie, dean of the College of Education, “The college has been transformed into a vibrant, modern learning environment—inspiring collaboration, strengthening a sense of community and heralding a new beginning for preparing teacher Students are happy to be back in the remodeled Schindler. educators.”

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BIG Celebrating the opening of The University of Northern Iowa‘s Schindler Education Center

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