Aug. 21, 2003

The College of Education and Human Services

A 'new world' at UNL will focus on families, schools and communities

By Jana Miller, Special to the Scarlet

A version of this article will appear in the Fall 2003 issue of 'Nebraska' magazine.

Marjorie Kostelnik didn't grow up in Nebraska, but in the two years she has lived here since becoming a dean at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, she has made a conscious effort to get to know the people and the places in the state she now calls home.

Kostelnik says she has found Nebraskans to be friendly and open to new ideas, with a strong sense of community. These are a few of the qualities she says will help the state adjust to UNL's new college, the College of Education and Human Sciences, of which Kostelnik will be dean.

The college, approved by the NU Board of Regents in June, brings together programs, students, faculties and staffs of Teachers College and the College of Human Resources and Family Sciences.

The College of Education and Human Sciences is the only college in Nebraska to address families, schools and communities as a "seamless grouping of entities that uniquely support human potential," university officials say. It is one of only three such programs at land grant/research I universities in the nation. The others are at Colorado State University and the University of Tennessee.

"We have agreed to build a new world together," Kostelnik said. "There will be new thinking that comes about. That's what is critical. Over time, we will develop a pervasive way of looking at the world that will be different than if we hadn't come together. That is what is exciting."

Kostelnik, who was named dean of the College of Human Resources and Family Sciences in November 2000, became dean of the College of Education and Human Sciences effective Aug. 18. James O'Hanlon, who was dean of Teachers College for 21 years, has retired but remains on the faculty. A 30-member transition committee has been working since January on details of the governing structure and how the college will operate.

Kostelnik said the creation of the new college builds on the firm foundations and rich histories of two colleges that share many similarities: Both colleges are involved in families and communities and focus on outreach and service. Both have long records of helping people lead better lives. Both colleges value theory and research, as well as practice and applied methods. Both have strong graduate programs. As O'Hanlon has said, concern about the quality of people's lives "is in the DNA of both colleges."

Some of the areas that faculty believe the new college could address very well, Kostelnik said, include teaching and learning in school and non-school settings, distance education, nutrition, exercise and wellness, counseling and clinical work, literacy, early childhood and elementary education, rural schools, family-school partnerships and violence prevention, among others.

While Kostelnik can visualize the new college conceptually, she says she believes faculty, students and stakeholders will be the ones to work out the details of how the college will operate on a day-to-day basis.

"Faculty members need a chance to get to know each other better, a chance to explore," she said. "This will work best if faculty find those connections, if students find the connections and if we find the connections with our partners in the community. It can't simply be a top-down mandate."

Carolyn Pope Edwards, a professor of psychology and family and consumer sciences, is one faculty member excited about how the new college will benefit her area of study.

"The professional field of early childhood education, from birth to age 8, has reshaped itself in a way that aligns well with the College of Education and Human Sciences," she said.

"For me, interdisciplinary approaches to early care, education and intervention are the recognized way to go, and so I am excited about the possibilities of the new college," she said.

Jody Isernhagen, associate professor of educational administration, also sees much promise in the formation of the new college.

"No longer will my department or I be faced with offering solutions to the challenges of schools, families and communities alone. Instead, as colleagues in the new college, we will face these challenges together at points where our disciplines connect or cross," Isernhagen said.

That cooperation also interests Beth Birnstihl, associate dean of the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resource's Cooperative Extension at UNL.

"I look forward to the new relationships that will form around extension and teaching (in the new college)," she said. "There'll be more opportunities to tie together the work of our family and community action teams with scholarly research. We'll be able to strengthen teaching skills and grow our expertise around both younger and older children. From the 4-H standpoint, we're looking at opportunities to build new curriculum."

Significant changes in the structures of families and communities make this interdisciplinary work especially important now, said former Teachers College Dean O'Hanlon. Now, students are more diversified in their ethnic backgrounds, and many come from single-parent families or have parents who both work outside the home. Some come from homes where English is not the first language.

"You've just got a lot of changes in the family structure that affect children's learning," he said.

According to Edwards, many faculty members were working together to address these changes long before the creation of the new college.

"Since coming to Nebraska six years ago, I have found that many faculty from departments across UNL are friendly to interdisciplinary work," she said. "They are open-minded and innovative in their approaches to preparing teachers in collaborative and family-centered ways."

This cooperative work, Kostelnik said, will help Nebraskans think of the new college as a new structure, not as one college taking over the other.

"It is not the case of the identities associated with the different professions somehow being lost. Instead, we are coming together, and we are going to create a whole that is larger than the sum of its parts. There will be distinctive pieces," she said. "People who are thinking about education will clearly see education, people who are thinking about the human sciences will see human sciences, but the two spheres won't necessarily be compartmentalized and separated.

"Alumni who identify as teachers and school administrators will still recognize teaching and learning as being central and important. People who think of themselves as human scientists, whether in nutrition, textiles or family life, still will recognize those elements."

As an official on education in Nebraska and an alumnus of the UNL Teachers College, State Education Commissioner Doug Christensen has a special interest in the formation of the College of Education and Human Sciences. He said the coming together of two colleges that are functioning well and that have distinguished histories is "about the most exciting thing to happen at this university in a long time."

The creation of this college is a time for celebration, he told students, faculty and alumni earlier this year. Institutions of higher education that train teachers and administrators and do not find ways to connect to children, families and communities are bound to fail, he said.

The opening of UNL's new College of Education and Human Sciences makes the start of this new school year that much more inspiring for everyone involved, including Edwards, who is already looking ahead from this beginning to the promising future of the college.

"I am excited to think about where my students and I will be 10 years from now after taking advantage of the opportunities of the new college," she said.

Kathy Steinauer Smith of University Communications and Barbara Rixstine of IANR contributed to this article.

Facts about the College of Education and Human Sciences

• Official address: 233 Mabel Lee Hall, Lincoln, NE, 68588-0234. A second office will be in 105 Home Economics building, East Campus, Lincoln, NE, 68588-0800.
• Phone: (402) 472-2913 (City and East)
• Fax: (402) 472-0522 (City); (402) 472-2895 (East)
• On the web: <http://cehs.unl.edu>.
• Number of undergraduates: 2,600, making it the college with the third-largest enrollment behind the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Business Administration
• Graduate students: About 1,000
• Permanent faculty: 176
• Staff members: 104
• Associate deans: Jim Walter, originally from Teachers College, and Fayrene Hamouz, originally from Human Resources and Family Sciences. They will be based in Mabel Lee Hall.
• Coordinator of graduate studies: David Wilson, office at the Home Economics building.
• Research liaison: Nancy Betts, office at the Home Economics building.
• Liaison for Cooperative Extension Division: Beth Birnstihl, office in Ag Hall on East Campus.

Answers to some questions about UNL's new college

Q: Why was the College of Education and Human Sciences created?

A: The components making up the focus of the new college - families, schools and communities - face increasingly complex challenges in today's world. It is difficult to imagine ways to address those challenges to enhance family and community life without taking into account schools. Likewise, educators face an impossible task of trying to enhance teaching and learning without strong families and communities to support that effort. In response, the College of Education and Human Sciences will bring together complementary disciplines and resources to carry out research, creative work, teaching and outreach targeted at building stronger links among families, schools and communities in Nebraska and beyond.

Q: What will be the immediate impact on students' programs?

A: Currently enrolled students will follow existing guidelines for their majors. As new options become available, students may choose whether to complete their degrees using the original program guidelines or switching to a new option that is available.

Q: How did the name come about?

A: Faculty, students and alumni suggested a variety of names for the new college. The name Education and Human Sciences was selected by a vote of faculty, staff and members of the two college alumni boards. The name is short, easy to remember and representative of all the disciplines encompassed by the new college.

Q: Have faculty of the former Teachers College and/or College of Human Resources and Family Sciences departments moved?

A: Yes, some have. Some faculty from Family and Consumer Sciences will move to Mabel Lee Hall, while some faculty members of the former Health and Human Performance department will join former Nutritional Science and Dietetics faculty in Ruth Leverton Hall. That new department will be called Nutrition and Health Sciences.

Q: How are people in the community reacting to the new college?

A: Overall, the reaction from alumni and groups with a vested interest in education and the human sciences was extremely positive. People are excited about the potential of the new college and are eager to participate in its future. Groups such as teachers' organizations, school administrators, home economics groups, Friends of the Robert Hillestad Gallery, the International Quilt Study Center Advisory Board and others have received information about the new college through letters, e-mails and in-person visits from Dean Marjorie Kostelnik and former Teachers College Dean James O'Hanlon.

Q: Why does an alliance between the former College of Human Resources and Family Sciences and Teachers College make sense?

A: For the past 100 years, both colleges have focused on enhancing people's quality of life. Both colleges are accredited by their relevant professional societies and both have programs that enjoy national rankings and reputations for excellence. Philosophically, CHRFS and TC both emphasize interdisciplinary approaches to research and creative work, teaching and outreach, and both are known for emphasizing the connections between scholarship and practice. Between them, TC and CHRFS have a critical mass of faculty and students whose work addresses the needs and interests of individuals, families, schools and communities. Common ties like these provide a strong foundation for a fruitful partnership.

Q: Will TC programs or CHRFS programs lose their identities?

A: No. Locally and nationally, the new college will be clearly associated with education and with the human sciences and with each of the colleges' 100-year histories at UNL. Content and programs associated with TC and CHRFS will continue to thrive in the new college. CHRFS and TC alumni and community stakeholders will continue to find a home in the College of Education and Human Sciences.

Q: What are the benefits of creating the new college?

A: One college devoted to strengthening families, schools and communities will enable us to:

• Bring together human and fiscal resources focused on strengthening families, schools and communities;
• Address real challenges faced by families, schools and communities;
• Influence the primary systems on which people depend: home, school, workplace and community;
• Offer solutions to complex problems involving multiple social systems, such as families, communities and schools;
• Create a new kind of college that will put us at the leading edge in education and the human sciences;
• Become a significant area of strength in the NU system;
• Increase our presence on campus and gain greater influence among our peers;
• Enhance opportunities for external funding;
• Develop a larger, more active alumni base as a voice for families, schools and communities;
• Facilitate faculty and students working together across disciplines;
• Strengthen and develop new partnerships;
• Provide a greater array of choices from which students may select within the same college.

Q: In what settings are graduates of the College of Education and Human Sciences prepared to work?

A: CEHS graduates will work with people in and across a variety of settings including schools, health and clinical settings, community agencies and institutions, cultural organizations, non-school educational organizations, industry, government and research laboratories.

Q: Will alumni groups from Teachers College and the College of Human Resources and Family Sciences continue to exist?

A: Officers from the two alumni board groups have agreed to create a single alumni organization for the new college. This group will sponsor its first event, an alumni pre-game meal and celebration, at the Wick Alumni Center on Oct. 4.

Jim O'Hanlon retired as dean of UNL's Teachers College on Aug. 5 after 21 years. Below right: A UNL portrait of O'Hanlon from 1972.

O'Hanlon proud of his final big project as dean

By Kelly Bartling, University Communications

In the summer of 1999, Teachers College Dean Jim O'Hanlon and College of Human Resources and Family Sciences Dean Karen Craig brought several groups of their faculty together to talk about a new and exciting idea: working together to create a focus on families, schools and communities.

But like a lot of ideas that surface among academics and bureaucracies, the excitement piqued and then it suffered what appeared to be a fatal blow when O'Hanlon and Craig approached administration and the idea fell flat.

"I had a file on a combined college and those meetings that we had, and wouldn't you know, about three years later, I eventually threw it away," said O'Hanlon, in his dean's office at Teachers College.

He laughs. "The lesson here is, 'Don't throw files away!'"

Because in 2002, CHRFS Dean Marjorie Kostelnik and UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman were having talks of their own, and unbeknownst to O'Hanlon, Perlman really liked the dual-college proposal. So the work to resurrect the 1999 planning began again, on a fast track.

"This has always been a good idea," O'Hanlon said, "and unfortunately universities don't have a good history of putting things together, and that's the difficulty. Higher education is really about becoming more and more narrow, not holistic, like this."

But over the past year, O'Hanlon says Teachers College and CHRFS have done the impossible: put together a new college. In a process that could have been endlessly stalled by uncertainties, tedious proceedings and self-doubt, the two groups of faculty and staff have really come together and just "made it happen."

"For the most part, everyone came to the discussion with an open mind," O'Hanlon said. "Sure there were doubts. And the doubts were legitimate about whether it was a good idea. But these people had enough confidence in themselves to look at a new idea without being frightened away by it. At no time did I sense a strong movement against it. We had good questions raised. But much of the discussion by the faculty revolved around, 'We can talk about this much longer, but if we're going to do it, then let's do it.'"

Just as O'Hanlon's eager faculty had in 1999, groups of faculty came together in fall 2002 and started talking, serious about moving the new college forward.

"The first the two faculties heard about it as a serious proposal was a week before school started last year (August 2002) at a faculty meeting," O'Hanlon said. "And now look at what we've accomplished. It has to be some kind of world's record!"

O'Hanlon, who served his last official day as the last official dean of Teachers College on Aug. 15, is proud that his final accomplishment is the realization of the new college. Through his 21 years of service (O'Hanlon has the longest current tenure of any teachers college dean in the nation), he's seen a lot of changes.

Since 1982 O'Hanlon has guided Teachers College through emerging technologies, attention to diversity and more rigorous expectations for students, and a new emphasis on grant-writing. He's been an advocate for higher proficiencies and higher pay for teachers, served 15 years as the UNL faculty representative to the NCAA, proposed higher standards and led the university and the state through some challenging times.

But this step "will ensure the viability of teacher education at UNL in the future," O'Hanlon said.

The emphasis on education as part of community and family gets back to where teacher education started, the dean said.

"If you look back into the history of teachers' colleges, there was, in the past, more of an emphasis on families and communities," he said. "Teaching really needs to be about real life, and this will strengthen our ability to teach in real life. ... The tie among families and communities and schools is even more important now, and it's important to our future to strengthen all. If we can't strengthen all three, none will succeed."

O'Hanlon admits a tinge of disappointment that he won't be more actively involved in leading the new college. Although he is staying on faculty and he carried the idea through, the leadership will be turned over to CHRFS Dean Marjorie Kostelnik.

"All of us are going to learn new things from this and it will be a jump forward in our careers," he said. "There will be new colleagues to learn from and we'll all enjoy the benefits of that and learn from one another quickly. Marjorie and I both hope and believe things will happen at this college that will not happen anywhere else. New practices, new research, new collaborations it's going to be very exciting."

Even though it marks the end of a 95-year history as the University of Nebraska Teachers College, it is an important beginning for a new chapter for the university, he said.

"As my predecessor, Bob Egbert, said the day he left as dean, I'd say it also: 'I wouldn't have missed this for the world,'" O'Hanlon said. "It's been fun."

"Even though I got into administration in an unusual way, I liked it a lot. The best part is helping people develop their potential."

And, he said, the new college will help do just that, he said.

A look back: A time line of Teachers College

• Feb. 14, 1908: Teachers College established by the Board of Regents to focus on "the history, theory and practice of teaching generally, to improve the quality of secondary teaching in particular, and to provide thoroughly prepared teachers for these schools."
• 1909: Forty-seven teacher-education students graduated with bachelor's degrees.
• 1914: Graduate School of Education was organized. The college was made up of the departments of education, educational psychology, educational theory and practice, secondary education and agriculture education.
• 1919: Teachers College building was opened (pictured at right). It is now Canfield Hall North.
• 1933: By this year, 40 percent of the teachers and 60 percent of the administrators in Nebraska had studied in Teachers College.
• 1940s: The Master's of Education degree was established.
• 1949-50: 21 percent of the students at the university were enrolled in Teachers College.
• 1950s: The Doctor of Education degree was initiated.
• 1960s: The college reached its peak of undergraduate enrollment at 4,065 in response to the need for teachers in America's K-12 schools.
• 1970s: Three area doctoral degree programs were established: administration, curriculum and instruction; psychological and cultural studies; and community and human resources.
• 1980s: Teachers College was identified in a national study as having the top student teaching program in the country.
• 1990s: A distance education doctoral program was established to serve students in western Nebraska, the first of its kind in the nation.
• 1990s: Selective admissions requirements were established in the college's undergraduate programs.
• 1992: The college's vocational education program was ranked No. 8 in the country.
• 1993: The college's educational psychology department was ranked No. 1 in the country in scholarly publications.
• 2001: Teachers College Hall was built between Henzlik and Mabel Lee halls.
• Aug. 18, 2003: The college became part of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's College of Education and Human Sciences.

A look back: Time line of the College of Human Resources and Family Sciences

• 1894: Rosa Bouton developed a course called Chemistry of Foods, which was originally taught in the Department of Chemistry. In 1898, Bouton began teaching the course in the newly formed School of Domestic Science. Bouton was given a $15 grant to equip a laboratory in the school, where she was the sole instructor.
• 1909: The home economics program became a department in the College of Agriculture and was moved to the newly constructed Home Economics building on what is now East Campus. The building included classrooms and labs as well as dormitory space for 40 women. The department offered courses in clothing construction and design, dietetics, home decoration, household administration and teaching.
• 1928: The first building dedicated to study of child development west of the Mississippi was built. It was named for Ruth Staples, who taught the first child development course at Nebraska.
• 1930: The home economics department added a course for men, "A Man's Problems in the Modern Home."
• 1943: The Food and Nutrition Building, now known as Ruth Leverton Hall, was built. The Army first occupied the finished building as a dormitory and classroom space for a special military training program until the end of World War II. Home Economics moved into this building in 1945.
• 1962: The home economics department became the School of Home Economics.
• 1970: The School of Home Economics was raised to status of College of Home Economics. Student enrollment tripled, and the college expanded into two new home management laboratories.
• 1989: The college began a PhD program.
• 1993: The college was renamed the College of Human Resources and Family Sciences.
• 1994: The Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery, the only gallery dedicated to textiles in the region, was created at the college. It is named for the longtime faculty member in the Department of Textiles, Clothing and Design.
• 1997: The International Quilt Study Center was added to the college to promote the appreciation of quilts as an art form.
• Aug. 18, 2003: The college became part of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's College of Education and Human Sciences.