[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 9 (Tuesday, January 31, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Page S364]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             RECOGNITION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA

 Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, on Wednesday, the American 
Association of Colleges for Teacher Education will present its Best 
Practice for Collaboration with a Community College Award to the 
University of Northern Iowa. This award recognizes outstanding 
collaboration between a university teacher education program and a 
community college--in this case, Des Moines Area Community College. 
This partnership is a wonderful example of two fine educational 
institutions working together to meet the needs of schools in rural 
Iowa, and I congratulate them for this accomplishment.
  Eleven years ago, UNI joined forces with the DMACC campus in Carroll 
to develop a new approach to address the unique needs of rural school 
districts. The idea was simple--locate a teacher preparation program 
where you have the need. Instead of training teachers 160 miles away on 
its campus in Cedar Falls, UNI established a joint program with DMACC 
in the heart of rural western Iowa.
  Rural communities face many unique challenges, including the need to 
recruit highly qualified teachers. At the same time, many rural 
residents have a need to upgrade their skills, but are unable to move 
to a larger community to attend college. The 2+2 program is a perfect 
solution. This homegrown approach allows individuals to obtain the 
training they need to fill the jobs that are literally in their own 
backyards.
  Since 1995, UNI has awarded baccalaureate degrees to nearly 100 
teachers at the Carroll campus. It is very important to point out that 
nearly all of these individuals continue to live in western Iowa, and 
are working for school districts in the surrounding area.
  This program has been an enormous success and I am very proud to have 
secured Federal funding from the U.S. Department of Education to 
support this innovative program. UNI is building on this experience and 
will be expanding the 2+2 model to other fields of study, including 
technology management, general business and criminology. The University 
will also expand the partnership to include Western Iowa Tech Community 
College in Sioux City, Northeast Iowa Community College in Peosta and 
Calmar, Eastern Iowa Community College in Davenport, and Iowa Western 
Community College in Council Bluffs.
  The success of this project is due to the creative energy and hard 
work of many individuals from UNI, DMACC and the community of Carroll 
including: Dr. Constantine Curris, former President of UNI; Dr. Joe 
Borgen, former President of DMACC; Dr. Robert Koob, President of UNI; 
Dr. Robert Denson, President of DMACC; Dr. Richard Hawkes, Professor of 
Teaching at UNI; Dr. Roger Kueter, Director of Community College 
Projects at UNI; Dr. Jim Knott, Provost of the DMACC Carroll campus; 
Steve Schultz, coordinator of the 2+2 program for DMACC; Art Neu, 
former mayor of Carroll and former Lieutenant Governor of the State of 
Iowa; and Jim Wilson, publisher of the Carroll Daily Times Herald.
  I extend my congratulations to all of them on this outstanding 
achievement.

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