FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Al Hays, director, UNI graduate program in Public Policy, (319) 273-2910
Gwenne Culpepper, Office of Public Relations, (319) 273-2761
Note to editors: A previous release about this subject indicated the grant monies would be spent refurbishing the College Hill area. That is incorrect. Correct information follows in this release.
Also, Hays and other members of the committee responsible for the grant will host a celebration Friday, Sept. 8, at the YWCA of Black Hawk County, at 4:30 p.m. The event is not open to the public, but committee members will be available to the media at that time.
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — The University of Northern Iowa will receive a $382,063 federal grant to help create stronger Waterloo neighborhoods, particularly those in the “We Care,” “Maples” and Unity” residential areas. The grant will be used to establish a Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC) and is awarded through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. UNI will provide another $551,010 for the project.
Information previously released indicated the project would focus on the College Hill neighborhood near the university. The targeted neighborhoods are all located in north Waterloo: “We Care” is bordered by Halstead and Logan avenues, and Quincy and Linn streets; “Unity” is bordered by Quincy Street, MLK Drive, Halstead and Newell streets; and “Maples” encompasses Prairie Park, bordered by Fairfield, Anita and W. Donald streets, and Logan Avenue.
Al Hays, director of the graduate program in Public Policy at UNI and chair of the committee that applied for the grant, says the COPC will offer programs in five major areas: neighborhood capacity building, home ownership, educational enrichment for youth, home maintenance training, and lead-based paint screening. Hays says most of the programming will focus on the targeted neighborhoods, but some resources will be available to all 17 neighborhoods that make up Waterloo's Consolidated Urban Revitalization Area.
Other UNI departments participating in the project are the Center for Social and Behavioral Research, Industrial Technology, Global Health Corps, the Center for Urban Education and the School of Music. Funding also is being provided by the provost and vice president, and the dean of the College of the Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Community agencies collaborating on this project are the city of Waterloo, Operation Threshold Inc., the Center City Arts Committee; Cedar Valley's Promise Inc., Black Hawk County Health Dept., Village Initiative, the YWCA of Black Hawk County, Waterloo Community Schools, and the specifically targeted neighborhoods.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Kathy Gulick, Director of university health services, (319) 273-6921
Vicki Grimes, Office of Public Relations, (319) 273-2761
Note to editors: This is an updated release -- correcting day of week error in release dated 8/31/00.
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa —“Sole Power,” a project designed to encourage non-motorized commuting to campus, will hold a fall kick-off at 10 a.m., Thursday, Sept. 14, outside Maucker Union on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa.
“The goal is for people to leave their cars at home and instead walk, bike or skate to campus,” said Kathy Gulick, UNI director of university health services. "It's part of the "green triangle model." By leaving your car at home, you promote good physical fitness, the environment and reduce the stress on your finances."
Several "Sole Power" activities are scheduled: UNI Public Safety will register bikes; Arrive Alive will sell Bell helmets for $7; Europa Cycle & Ski will provide bike tune-ups; the Panther Pacers Running Club will give information on the organization; UNI Panther Shuttle representatives will explain their program; and T-shirts, water bottles and bike bells can be earned for pledging to increase car-free commuting. Information promoting campus recreational walking routes and the Cedar Valley Recreational Trails also will be available.
Assisting Gulick in the event are UNI students Nicole Plowman, Bloomfield, and Katie Beadle, Dubuque.
For more information, contact Gulick at (319) 273-6921.
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(Part of the EducatioNet series from the University of Northern Iowa)
For release during September 2000
Contact: Gwenne Culpepper, UNI Office of Public Relations, (319) 273-2761
CEDAR FALLS – Recently the National Program for Playground Safety (NPPS) concluded its two-year study of playgrounds nationwide, giving the country's playgrounds a grade of “C” overall. NPPS, based at the University of Northern Iowa, evaluated 3,000 playgrounds according to supervision level, age-appropriateness of equipment, fall surfacing and equipment maintenance. “What we found is that we need to continue to make community leaders aware of the fact that children need to be safe on the playground,” says Donna Thompson, director of NPPS.
She and her staff developed a revolutionary solution – the NPPS Safety School, a four-day preparation course that has hosted participants from 45 states and been presented abroad at several U.S. military installations.
“Interest is continuing to build,” notes Thompson. “People are recognizing that children need to be safe on playgrounds, and that someone has to take responsibility for helping that occur.”
Thompson says anyone can attend the schools. Past participants have included nurses, city officials, teachers, parents, administrators, child care professionals and individuals who work in risk management. Participants typically are responsible for about 40 playgrounds each, “So we're able to have a lot of influence.” Subjects covered during the Safety School include playground design, safety review and planning, and a one-on-one consultation. Those attending also make trips to local playgrounds, allowing them to actually apply the knowledge they've gained.
Thompson, who has been director of the program since its founding in 1995, says her interest in playground safety stems from a personal experience. Thirty years ago, she was monitoring a playground on which a child was injured as he tried to leap from his bicycle to a ladder. He broke his arm. Thompson herself broke an arm during a fall onto cement, an event she says emphasized the continued need for better fall surfacing on playgrounds. “The children of America deserve an `A' playground. Most of the factors that are preventing them from having the playground they deserve can be easily remedied.”
NPPS was established at UNI in 1995 by a grant from the Centers for Disease Control. The program maintains a toll-free hotline, 1-800-554-PLAY, to respond to playground safety issues. The program's web address is www.uni.edu/playground.
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(Part of the EducatioNet series from the University of Northern Iowa)
For release during September 2000
Contact: Gwenne Culpepper, Office of Public Relations, (319) 273-2761
CEDAR FALLS--While there is a definite shortage of business education and vocational education teachers in the state of Iowa, there still is a need to teach the skills traditionally covered in these courses, says Dianna Briggs, a University of Northern Iowa student teacher coordinator who also teaches in UNI's College of Business Administration.
Briggs was one of the writers of Iowa's minimum competency standards for business education. She recently shared a summary of seven skills or workplace basics that employers are seeking, compiled by Langford International.
--Employers seek employees who are able to learn. Briggs says with the shifts in jobs, responsibilities and employer needs, workers need to be able to “absorb, process and apply new information quickly and effectively.”
--Listening and oral communication.
While these skills may sound fairly easy, Briggs stresses employers list them as important attributes in future workers. There is little instruction offered in these areas, yet 55 percent of time spent communicating is spent listening.
-- Sound basic academic skills, with competence in reading, writing and computation.
Employers want workers to have these skills. And, she says, their use on the job will require additional proficiency in summarizing information, monitoring one's own work, and using analytical and critical thinking skills.
--Adaptability combined with creative thinking and problem solving skills.
Tying into basic academic skills, Briggs says an organization's ability to succeed depends on using creative thinking to solve problems and overcome adversity.
--Personal management skills. Briggs and Langford International say necessary characteristics include taking pride in work accomplished, setting goals and meeting them, and enhancing job skills to meet new challenges.
--Teamwork and cooperation. The ability to work cooperatively in teams and be effective as a group is increasingly important for workplace success.
--Organizational effectiveness and leadership. These skills are considered key elements in achieving workplace success, says Briggs. Employers want employees to “have some sense of where the organization is headed and what they must do to make a contribution, as well as be able to assume responsibility and motivate coworkers,” according to the Langford summary.
“When you look at this summary of skills that employers say they are seeking,” says Briggs, “the
vocational areas meet every one of these needs. No matter what careers students may choose to pursue,
they still need these very basic skills.”
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(Part of the EducatioNet series from the University of Northern Iowa)
For release during September 2000
Contact: Gwenne Culpepper, UNI Office of Public Relations, (319) 273-2761
CEDAR FALLS – Rheta DeVries believes that the first few years of a child's life are the most important. In fact, she says, what the child does or does not receive in terms of brain stimulation during those years can set the stage for all future learning and development.
DeVries is the director of the Regents' Center for Early Developmental Education at the University of Northern Iowa. She says early childhood education – that is, from birth through third grade – establishes a strong foundation for math, literacy and even socialization.
To that end, a new early childhood education center, to known as the Freeburg Early Childhood Education Center, is being built in Waterloo, Iowa. The center will be operated by the Regents' Center at UNI, in partnership with the Waterloo (Iowa) School District, Allen Health Systems and Allen College. The program will serve 66 children, ages 3 through first grade, and also will provide pre-service and in-service education for teachers, health professionals and child caregivers.
DeVries says the center will be open 11 to 12 hours, so children can receive before- and after-school care without having to move from venue to venue.
People are becoming increasingly aware of the need for early childhood education,” notes DeVries. “Since Head Start began in the 1960s, there has been more curriculum development in terms of this area. People are thinking about what kinds of experiences we need to provide for children in order to promote their development and learning.”
For instance, she says, this new center will emphasize environmental stimulation through work with parachutes, catapults and art activities. “In this way, the child can experiment. Experimentation is so important. It's where the child tries out his/her own hypothesis, to discover the properties of these various objects.”
Stimulation on the social level is important too. DeVries believes in helping children understand other points of view through games such as concentration, go fish, or hide and seek. “There are different roles in games, so children have the opportunity to think about relationships with others and about others' point of view, while they play.”
DeVries urges parents to seek out stimulating activities for their children during early childhood, and to work with daycare centers and schools to make sure similar activities occur there as well.
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(Part of the EducatioNet series from the University of Northern Iowa)
For release during September 2000
Contact: Gwenne Culpepper, Office of Public Relations, (319) 273-2761
At first glance, the average kindergarten classroom may appear to be little more than a large play area --.the ultimate dream for a 5-year-old. Children busy themselves with blocks, books, crayons, miniature kitchen set-ups and the requisite construction paper. There are few structured activities. Children are allowed to work with sand, water and even mud. Fun at every turn.
But what, if anything, do children gain from all this playing?
What they gain, says Jill Uhlenberg, is a priceless learning experience. Uhlenberg is an instructor and coordinator of the University of Northern Iowa's Price Laboratory School Child Development Center. A strong proponent of play-based learning, Uhlenberg says that, through play, children in kindergarten classes can learn socialization, sequence language development, and even mathematical concepts.
For instance, art projects such as coloring, painting and drawing teach children to manipulate materials, to recognize shapes and colors, and to write. Putting on puppet shows teaches them character analyzation. Working with blocks can help teach children subtraction, addition, trial and error, and decision making.
Although some may advocate a stricter “reading, writing and arithmetic” sort of curriculum, Uhlenberg disagrees, primarily because 5-year-olds are typically not suited for more structured activities.
“They have a very hard time sitting down for long periods of time, waiting in lines, things like that,” says Uhlenberg. “It's very challenging for them. Their bodies very much need to be moving. At that age, they learn more from hands-on experience than they do from sitting and listening. A couple of years later, they won't have a problem with that, but at this age, they need something concrete.”
She believes kindergartners' basics should consist of things such as social problem solving, organization, and functioning in a group -- all of which can be learned well through play-based activities. Those skills lead directly to others which will help students as they progress through the grade levels. Uhlenberg says when children complete kindergarten, they should be able to:
“These things are so important,” says Uhlenberg. “If a child can do those, so much of the content can be more easily learned, just because the child can pay attention. If you can't do that, it's difficult for the content to get there and make sense.”
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