College of Social and Behavioral Sciences Stories & News

UNI campus

Caucuses cause chaos, opportunities for UNI professors

Three weeks remained before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, but rounds of media interviews and education events had left UNI political science professor Donna Hoffman’s voice scratchy and fading. So when a French news outlet reached out to Hoffman — one of several UNI experts on Iowa’s idiosyncratic method for selecting presidential candidates — her voice couldn’t quite manage another phone or video interview.

UNI associate professor of school psychology Nicole Skaar.

New UNI program addresses urgent need for school psychologists

A new program from the University of Northern Iowa and Green Hills Area Education Agency will help increase student access to mental health services in high-need, rural areas of western Iowa currently struggling to hire school psychologists. 
Ice in the Arctic

Adapting to a changing Arctic

Perched near the top of the world on the cusp of the Arctic Circle, the coastal indigenous communities around the Bering Sea exist at the intersection of the modern and ancient worlds.

In many ways, life for these Russian and Alaskan villages has completely changed. Snowmobiles and motor boats have replaced dog sleds and kayaks. Tents and yurts have transformed into houses made from modern materials. People own guns and buy gas.

UNI associate professor Nicole Skaar

UNI school psychologists changing systems and building communities

Mental health issues are on the rise in Iowa schools, but the school psychologists to help combat this trend are in short supply. UNI's School Psychology Program is the only state accepting students and helping meet these needs, and one of its associate professors was recently recognized for her work in the field.
University of Northern Iowa students excavate a part of campus for an archaeology class.

The search for Central Hall continues

UNI students will once again search for the remains of the oldest building on campus.

This may seem a bit abstract, but please consider this: The grounds of the University of Northern Iowa are like a Jell-O salad.

Think of the grounds as a three-dimensional mold, the jiggly, gelatin confection analogy within which layers of the university’s history reside. Bricks, limestone rubble, nails and all other manner of bygone miscellany then become the fruit cocktail, the artifacts that are unearthed as you excavate through that iconic dessert.