The University of Northern Iowa prepares students for many avenues of success, including in graduate school. Here we highlight a few talented members of the Class of 2020 whose UNI experience helped them achieve their goals in higher education.
Joseph Tibbs
The outbreak of COVID-19 has shuttered most of the University of Northern Iowa’s campus services, but a small, dedicated group of dining services workers have continued to work through the pandemic to provide three meals a day to the tiny population of students still living on campus.
When the UNI Foundation launched a fundraising campaign last week for a new scholarship to help students facing financial hardship as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the response was powerful.
Within a few days more than 500 people donated a combined $50,000 for the new UNItogether Scholarship, which will help mitigate tuition costs for new and returning students.
While COVID-19 forced an unimaginable end to the semester, our graduating seniors continued to impress with their academic brilliance, strong relationships with faculty and other students, and wide variety of out-of-class experiences to create a strong foundation for their future. These are but a few of our promising Class of Spring 2020 graduates:
Ryan Cahalan (Finance, ’99) has always considered Iowa his home. That was true even as he worked almost 20 years of his real estate career outside of the state. He returned to Iowa just a few years ago, and is now working to grow his own business, Artisan Capital Group in Des Moines, of which he is a co-founder and partner.
Nearly 2,000 brand-new University of Northern Iowa graduates are expected to gather Thursday for a commencement ceremony unlike any in UNI history.
Instead of crossing a stage at the McLeod Center this weekend to receive their degree, the Class of 2020 will celebrate their achievements online. Social distancing guidelines amid a global coronavirus pandemic have left US universities little choice but to move their commencement ceremonies off campus.
As the nation and Cedar Valley region continue to grapple with the devastating fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, the University of Northern Iowa is stepping up to help students.
Sometimes a little destruction is necessary for creation.
That’s certainly true at the University of Northern Iowa’s Textile and Apparel Product Development and Materials Analysis Laboratory - a unique, $3 million state-of-the-art facility brimming with advanced machinery capable of putting every type of stress imaginable on fabric. National retailers use these sorts of tests to create strong, light fabrics.