When one in four teachers in Iowa has graduated from the University of Northern Iowa, it’s safe to say Panthers had a tremendous role to play in nearly 99% of full-time teaching roles in Iowa being filled in the 2025-26 school year. It’s no wonder 98% of UNI’s teacher education graduates from fall 2024 to summer 2025 were employed or continuing their education in fall 2025.

“UNI continues to be one of the best teacher education programs in the nation,” said Benjamin Forsyth, associate dean for educator preparation and associate professor. “It has had that reputation for a long time, and it lives up to that reputation.”

That reputation lives on in the form of teachers, new and veteran alike, throughout Iowa who are impacting their classrooms every single day. Elizabeth Forcht is one of these young teachers. After graduating from UNI with a history teaching degree in spring 2025, she promptly got offered a position as a social studies teacher at Cedar Falls High School, which she describes as a dream job.

“It’s a great feeling knowing when I tell people I graduated from UNI, their immediate reaction is going to be they know I’m prepared to be a teacher,” said Forcht. “They just set us up for success so well, and I'm proud to put that on my resume. I'm proud to say that in an interview, because I know it just helps me out, saying I came from such a prestigious education school.”

A signature part of the UNI Teacher Education Program is the experience students get in real school classrooms with a variety of young students.

“When we talk to students about coming to UNI, we will often say we do field experiences early and often,” said Forsyth. “Lots of the best programs do that, so I wouldn't say UNI is unique in it, but it is a really important cornerstone to a good teacher education program.”

For Forcht, getting in the classroom early and often solidified that she was on the right path. Becoming a teacher was going to be a career that capitalized on her strengths and left her fulfilled. It also helped her learn and grow even more.

 “It made class a lot more relatable,” she said. “When I was in my methods class talking about certain things that might happen in our future classrooms, I actually had some experience to pull from, like, ‘I just saw that in in a local classroom when I was observing.’”

In addition to frequent field experiences, Forsyth believes there are many other reasons why UNI’s program continues to be so successful, producing 500 or more teacher education graduates annually in recent years. The program stays up-to-date on best practices. It also employs high-quality faculty and staff.

For Forcht, one of her greatest advocates at UNI was Chad Christopher, social science and history teaching coordinator. He provided valuable insight into the world of teaching that helped her land her first job.

“He had great experience being a social studies teacher himself and helped me navigate the job finding process,” she said. “He gave me tips on the best time to apply and how to find the best school district for me.”

Even with such a strong established reputation, the UNI teacher education program is never stagnant. Forsyth says one way the program seeks to continuously improve is by implementing changes based on responses to surveys sent to new teachers who have graduated from UNI. A companion survey is also sent to the school administrators overseeing these new teachers to determine areas of strength in UNI’s teacher education program as well as areas for improvement. Forsyth says surveys from both the teachers and administrators consistently show UNI teachers are well prepared for the profession. 

One area many teachers today are looking for added guidance in is teaching English language learners. Seeing this in the surveys, Forsyth says UNI has already made changes to ensure today’s teachers are better prepared to work with English language learners.

“That's been a big focus for the last year and a half or so: how do we make sure the ELL instruction is the best it can be for our candidates?” said Forsyth. “It will continue to be a major focus for us.”

UNI has already doubled the number of courses that teacher education students take that are focused on teaching English language learners. These courses are being regularly assessed.

In the last two years, the teacher education program has also undergone a curriculum transformation. 

“We're really proud of the changes that's made: better interactions between methods and clinical experiences, much more timely core of coursework called Educator Essentials and aligning our work with professional standards and balancing the content with pedagogy,” said Forsyth.

There may not be a magic formula for molding successful, confident educators — but UNI gets as close to it as possible.