Just over 25 years ago, the Des Moines Area Community College reached out to the University of Northern Iowa with a problem: Rural areas of Western Iowa were having trouble attracting quality teaching candidates.
The solution to this issue is still flourishing today - the 2+2 Elementary Education Program, now the longest-running partnership between a university and community college in the state. The program is celebrating its 25th anniversary with the largest student class in its history.
UNI NEWS SERVICES - Rebekah (Bekah) Craighton, a senior at Hampton Dumont High School in Hampton, Iowa, has been awarded the Sally Gearhart Strottman Memorial Scholarship in Elementary Education at the University of Northern Iowa. The UNI College of Education awards this scholarship to an incoming freshman from Northeast Iowa who will pursue a degree in elementary education.
UNI NEWS SERVICES - The University of Northern Iowa’s online master’s in education programs ranked among the top 25% nationally in a recently released 2021 U.S. News and World Report review.
The UNI programs tied for 72nd among 296 programs for master’s degrees in the first year UNI submitted information for this particular category.
2020 brought plenty to be angry about. There’s been a global pandemic, a national reckoning with racial injustice, an economic crisis and a presidential election - all of it debated each day on social media. But UNI education professor Suzanne Freedman, who has specialized in forgiveness research over nearly three decades and teaches a course on the subject, said now may be a good time to remember the benefits of forgiveness, empathy and understanding.
2020 brought plenty to be angry about. There’s been a global pandemic, a national reckoning with racial injustice, an economic crisis and a presidential election - all of it debated each day on social media. But UNI education professor Suzanne Freedman, who has specialized in forgiveness research over nearly three decades and teaches a course on the subject, said now may be a good time to remember the benefits of forgiveness, empathy and understanding.
As COVID-19 prompted abrupt, statewide school closures, University of Northern Iowa student teachers on the cusp of becoming fully certified educators found themselves suddenly transitioning the remainder of their semester to an online format and interviewing for positions remotely.
It was a jarring shift, but these students had already completed over 100 hours of classroom experience prior to student teaching and were ready to handle the task.
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.
In September, the UNI and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), a leading national higher education association based in Washington, D.C., released a comprehensive policy framework to revitalize the federal government’s role in educator preparation. The UNI-AASCU collaboration has been named the Project to Revitalize the Educator Preparation in America, or PREP America, in recognition of the need to develop new, meaningful solutions to longstanding challenges confronting America’s educators.
UNI students are again heading into local classrooms to help instruct students struggling with literacy. The class s a unique combination of university lectures, hands-on experience and community service.
