1970s
Events include: Technology
advances such as pocket calculators and touchtone telephones,
Apollo voyages to the moon, SALT treaties, Roe vs. Wade,
Kent State tragedy, the Vietnam War ends, U.S. leaves
the gold standard, Back to Basics movement in education,
busing to desegregate schools, Watergate scandal
Vietnam War protest on campus
U.S. presidents:
Jimmy Carter
(1977–1981)
Gerald Ford (1974–1977)
Richard Nixon
(1969–1974)
1975 | The Education of
All Handicapped Children Act becomes federal law.
1972 | Title IX is instituted
and creates a revolution in sport for girls and women.
1971 | Serrano vs. Priest case
declares property tax-based school finance system unfair
and unconstitutional.
1971 | In the fall of 1971,
a committee was preparing a proposal for Chicano studies
at the University “when a group of Chicano students demanded
a University department ‘within 72 hours,’” the March 1972
Alumni News reported. A Chicano studies department,
the first in the five-state area, was formed a few months
later and given a chairman, two assistant professors, supplies,
and library resources.
1970 |
The Office of Economic Opportunity
launches the first modern voucher experiment in Alum
Rock, California.
Malcolm Knowles publishes
The Modern Practice of Adult Education: Andragogy vs.
Pedagogy.
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Timeline
1978
Stan Deno,
professor of educational psychology, develops curriculum-based
measurement (CBM), a means of assessing the presence of learning
disabilities in children simply and quickly, without interrupting
other classroom activities. Two decades earlier, his mother,
Evelyn Deno, had led the Child to Adult Study, a follow-up
study of children who had been enrolled in the University’s
nursery school between 1925 and 1935.
 1977
After Dean Jack Merwin returns to
fulltime teaching, the University names William Gardner
(pictured)
as dean of the college. He serves until 1991. Among his
initiatives are programs designed to bring college staff
and faculty more frequently in contact with local schoolteachers
and administrators. His legacy continues with the annual
presentation of the William E. Gardner PreK–12 Outstanding
Educator Award.
1977
In anticipation of a slowdown in
the availability of new teaching positions during the 1980s—a
result of the maturation of the Baby Boomers—the
college
begins reducing the number of undergraduates it will admit
to its programs.
 1976
L. Sunny Hansen, along with other
faculty and graduate students, develop BORN FREE, a training
and development program to broaden career options for women
and men by reducing sex-role stereotypes in the schools.
Charles Turnbull
receives a Ph.D. in educational administration from the
college. A native of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands,
he began his studies in Minnesota after receiving bachelor’s
and master’s degrees from Hampton University. He works as
an elementary and secondary school teacher, high school
principal, assistant commissioner and commissioner of the
Virgin Islands department of education, and professor of
history at the University of the Virgin Islands. In 1999
he wins election as governor of the U.S. territory.
1975
 Brothers,
David W. and Roger Johnson, publish Learning Together
and Alone: Cooperative, Competitive, and Individualistic
Learning which entered its fifth printing in 1999.
Professors Byron Egeland and
Alan
Sroufe begin conducting a groundbreaking longitudinal study
of high-risk children and their families. This study, now
following the third generation of the original families,
focuses on determining the causes and predictors of child
competence and maladaptive behaviors, including school dropouts,
adolescent depression and conduct disorder, and other forms
of psychopathology. Data from this study have informed a
whole generation of child psychology researchers.
1973
Ruth Eckert becomes not
only the college’s first Regents’ Professor, but also
the first woman in the University’s history to be
honored with this title. After graduating from Harvard
University, Eckert came to the College of Education in
1938. From 1941 to 1950 she coordinated the college’s
two educational research units, the Bureau of
Institutional Research (BIR) and the Bureau of
Educational Research (BER). In 1950, she focused her
efforts as a professor of higher education, a position
she pioneered. She became nationally recognized for
establishing higher education as a field of study, and
initiated the college’s graduate program, which became a
national model. Her work touched almost every
significant area of higher education. Eckert published
more than 100 books and journal articles and served in
many national leadership posts. Upon her death in 1987,
she was memorialized by the Ruth Eckert Fellowship, an
annual award given to a female graduate student in
higher education.
The
Center for
Early Education and Development is founded.
1972
 With American involvement in the
Vietnam War still ongoing, student protests against government
politics and University policies continue. Demonstrations
on University Avenue disrupt traffic, draw Minneapolis police
to campus, and place the University under a temporary veil
of tear gas.
The University of Minnesota Child Care Center (UMCCC) is
founded in the college and quickly establishes a
national reputation for excellence. It was removed from
college administration in 1990 but rejoined the college
in 1993. As a child care operation serving the children
of University faculty, staff, and students, the UMCCC also provides onsite
access to early childhood researchers at the University.
1971
Eloise Jaeger (M.Ed. ’44) is named
the director of the School of Physical Education and becomes
the first woman at an American college or university to
have jurisdiction over both men’s and women’s physical education
programs. She is a steadfast force behind the establishment
of women’s intercollegiate athletics and the increase in
girls’ and women’s participation in all aspects of sport
and physical activity.
 1970
Jack Merwin becomes dean and holds
the office for six years. A professor of educational psychology
since 1960, he quickly focuses on fundamentally reorganizing
the college into seven departments. As an administrator,
his great talent is in planning and setting institutional
priorities during a time when money is scarce and budgets
are shrinking.
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