Foundations through WWII

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Transcript

[orchestra plays in bright rhythm and tone]

Narrator (Cathy Wurzer: female, same throughout film):
During 100 years, a child will learn, grow, choose a course in life, and pass knowledge to generation after generation after generation that follows. In the same hundred years, an institution can support every step of that child's path to maturity. That has been the role and the history of the University of Minnesota's College of Education and Human Development. As Minnesota has evolved from a frontier outpost to a leader in education, the college and its precursors have given teachers and school personnel access to the most sophisticated research, training, and support.

Using slates and screens, analyses and experiences, investigations and understanding, the college has affected lives in countless ways. In 1860, the Minnesota state legislature mandated that the University of Minnesota will offer “an opportunity for the training of teachers for the common schools of the state, in which shall be taught the theory and practice of teaching and everything that will perfect the elementary and other public schools of the state.”

Maria Sanford, one of the first women in American education to rise to the rank of professor, presented the first lectures on the art and theory of teaching ever offered at the University.

In 1891, the Reverend David L. Kiehle, Minnesota’s state superintendent of public instruction, was an early believer in the importance of professional training for teachers. Many of his colleagues, however, considered his notions unrealistic, and Kiehle was dismissed from his position in 1902.

In 1905, the College of Education was created with the mandate of guiding the training of teachers, principals, and school superintendents. Upon its birth, the college had just 3 faculty members teaching 13 courses. Two years later, the college opened the model laboratory school on Beacon Street, a hands-on workplace for teachers in training.

In one of his first acts as dean in 1915, Lotus Delta Coffman lent his support to the University's bureau of cooperative research, an effort to gather data from schools across Minnesota and to apply the information to the study of educational problems.

Florence l. Goodenough was a founding instructor in the institute of child development. She gained renown as an expert in the psychology of gifted children. Her draw-a-man test, developed in 1926, was used for decades to measure intelligence in preschoolers and older children. Among her many distinguished students was Ruth Howard, the first African American woman to receive a Ph.D. in psychology.

[piano plays in bright rhythm]

Rich Weinberg, professor, Institute of Child Development Director, CEED, Ph.D., 1968:
The Institute of Child Development really began in 1925 at the same time that the lab school, nursery school, started. Over those early years, there was much more of a focus than probably the middle years in the institute on parent education, radio shows, and development of extension courses, and community-based education.

Narrator:
The Institute grew into one of the nation's leading centers for the study of child development.

Steve Yussen, dean, College of Education and Human Development, Ph.D., 1973:
The great public universities with land grant traditions like the University of Minnesota and a college like this one, in that university, really are committed to being triple hitters. We want to be outstanding in the research and the production of new knowledge. We want to be excellent in the teaching that we do and the preparation of professionals and students for the future, and we want to do both of those things in the context of making connections with and making a difference in the world around us. We do it about as well as any college in the world does this.

Narrator:
The Owatonna Art Project in Minnesota, started in the depression years of the early 1930s, was the most successful of several community art projects funded by the federal government at that time.

Margaret DiBlasio, associate professor emerita, art education:
Originally it was intended to be a K-12 program, but it involved families looking at their homes, their environments. They found that when people were taught to improve their environment, or help to improve their environment, that that improved their quality of life for them or the perception of their quality of life. The project probably would have had a national influence if the second world war hadn't derailed it.

Narrator:
Although World War II interrupted the college's efforts to carry art into the community, the conflict also inspired new physiological research. The Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene was established in 1938. During World War II, Professor Ancel Keys conducted a famous study on starvation and subsistence diets.

Art Leon, professor, kinesiology:
He got interested in the effects of starvation, which was, of course, a prevalent condition in Europe, the concentration camps. So he got permission to recruit conscientious objectors, volunteers, to take part in the classic experiment. At first, there was some resentment from some students that considered them draft dodgers, then, life magazine did a feature story about their starving to help other people who are starving, and then they became heroes.