Research centers

Steve Yussen:
In the College of Education and Human Development currently, we have very strong academic programs at all levels. We also have some just truly amazing interdisciplinary research, training, and service centers.

Narrator:
The Institute on Community Integration, founded in 1985, works to improve services and opportunities for persons with disabilities, allowing them to lead full and productive lives in the community.

Charlie Lakin, senior research associate, Institute on Community Integration; Ph.D., 1981
Virtually every discipline at the University has supplied us with research assistants. And I think what's so great about that is that most of these people won't work directly in the field of disability, but they'll take with them attitudes, and they'll see opportunities to really contribute to the lives of people with disabilities that I think they would have missed had they not had the experience of working here for awhile.

Narrator:
The college's interest in human development also extends to other areas, including physical culture and athletics. Such early faculty members as Louise Kiehle and Anna Norris studied the developmental benefits of physical fitness, an interest the college retains today. The college's Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport, unique in the world, focuses research and outreach on examining the benefits of exercise and athletics on today's girls and women.

Mary Jo Kane, executive director, Tucker Center; director, School of Kinesiology
What we have to keep in mind is that the sport and physical activity experience for young girls and women is so critical to who they become as adults. When we invest in them, we don't just invest in an individual, but we invest in our future.

Narrator:
Another vital center in the college is CEED, the Center for Early Education and Development.

Scott McConnell, director of community engagement, CEED
I think CEED matters to the University, in that it is a mechanism by which information that is here gets out. CEED tends to work in an area that's really about community effort. It's about child care programs in living rooms where little kids spend their time. Little kids do not by and large come to the campus to find out how to live their lives.

Narrator:
The Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement, like CEED, emphasizes outreach into the community. Like its precursors, the research bureaus in the early- to mid-part of the century, it uses research to inform educational decisions in the public schools.

Kyla Wahlstrom, director, Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement; B.S., 1971; Ph.D., 1990
My mantra is "good decisions are made with good data." When you have good data that is neutral, rigorous research about the newest things in education, that enables good decisions to be made, and that's why we are around.