President Benjamin Allen

President Allen's
Priorities
for the
University of
Northern Iowa

 

UNI Today

Welcome to the University of Northern Iowa

One of UNI's primary responsibilities is to be a compassionate neighbor and dependable community partner. This spring's weather disasters have brought great difficulties to the entire state. The Cedar Valley and our neighboring communities, the I-380 corridor, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and the University of Iowa have been especially hard-hit. We're grateful to be able to offer our campus facilities for emergency shelter, flood preparation and mitigation. UNI students and employees are among the residents of communities dealing with tremendous loss while facing a long rebuilding and cleanup process. Our hearts and minds are with them, their families, neighbors and friends.

 

The UNI campus is supercharged this summer by events animating the priorities we've established for this university as we serve the state of Iowa into the 21st century.

 

UNI's commitment to provide state leadership in Pre-K through 12 education issues was fortified this spring by the Iowa Legislature's and Gov. Culver's approval of $4 million for the Board of Regents, State of Iowa, Mathematics and Science Education Collaborative Initiative.

 

As the lead institution in the Initiative, we are ready to move full speed ahead toward improving student performance in math and science, providing more qualified teachers, and promoting collaboration in math and science education across the state.

 

Also this spring our College of Education sponsored its fourth early childhood education summit, with this agenda focusing on the quality of preschool in Iowa. The innovations discussed in these sessions will ultimately benefit the 4,500 four-year-olds currently served by the Statewide Voluntary Preschool Program.

 

Our UNI community continues to expand internationally. A delegation of which I was happy to be a part recently visited the Wan Chai district of Hong Kong, where we conferred MBA degrees from UNI's College of Business Administration upon 40 candidates. More than 100 students have now graduated from this internationally-accredited program.

 

Panther Athletics is providing plenty of good news. We welcome the arrival of Troy Dannan as the new UNI Director of Athletics. We also congratulate the UNI men's and women's track and field program on being the first in Missouri Valley Conference history to sweep the league's indoor and outdoor team titles. The Men's track and field team capped the season with a solid 11th place finish at the 2008 NCAA Outdoor Championships, the best in school history.

 

The opening of UNI's innovative Human Performance Center has added a vital new dimension to campus, and we're very excited for the walls of Russell Hall to hear music again in the fall of '08. Sabin Hall is next up for renovation, beginning next year.

 

Benjamin J. Allen

President

 

University of Northern Iowa men's track team finished the day at the 2008 NCAA Outdoor Championships with a school-best 22 points for an 11th place team finish. UNI crowned nine All-Americans, who earned a total of 11 All-America citations.

---