Children key to a new beginning
The Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services, currently nationally ranked in the top 2 percent of education programs, broke ground Thursday for a new education and research center.
The state-of-the-art 60,000-square-foot building will put the Emma Eccles Jones Early Childhood Education and Research Center and the Dolores Dore Eccles Center for Early Care and Education under one roof.
Carol Strong, dean for the College of Education, opened Thursday afternoon’s ground breaking ceremony by thanking the many people and foundations that made the new building possible. Funding for the building came from $25 million donated by the Emma Eccles Jones Foundation and by an additional $1 million donation from the Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation. The funding supports the design and construction of the building along with five endowed faculty chairs in early childhood education.
“The center will focus on education, teacher training and research in addition to early care in education,” Strong said. “Our college pursues the highest standard of early childhood education, research and service.”
These standards, she said, will be greatly advanced by this new building.
The building will house many of the college’s important programs and research in early childhood education
The Very Reverend Frederick Lawson and University President Stan Albrecht also spoke at Thursday’s ceremony.
Lawson, a trustee for the Emma Eccles Jones Foundation, called everyone associated with the college, guardian angels.
“We are all guardian angels for those who attend and learn here, because together we look after the welfare and education of children,” he said.
Albrecht said the only controversy with this building was the location. After being told by members of the Emma Eccles Jones Foundation that the building needs to go at the location of the tennis courts.
Albrecht said, “Then you go back and tell them that you’re taking out the tennis courts.”
After a new location was found to place the tennis courts the plans were approved and the work started, he said.
“This facility will be able to provide opportunities for us, not just to continue, but to extend the teaching and the service that has elevated this wonderful college into both a national and worldwide leadership role,” he said.
Albrecht also spoke about the current economic turmoil in our country, saying it is critically important for Utah State to demonstrate, without reservation, that this great university will continue to move forward in its quest for ever-greater excellence.
The soil of the new site was first turned by Clark Giles and Rick Lawson from the Emma Eccles Foundation, Robert Jacoby the building’s architect, Gary Stephens and Albrecht, accompanied by children from the Sound Beginnings Preschool, a unique program for children with cochlear implants or digital hearing aids to learn using spoken language.
Kids from the Children’s House, which will soon become the Dolores Dore Eccles Center for Early Care and Education, helped break ground as well. The Center for Early Care and Education will provide much-needed child-care facilities for infants and young children whose parents are USU students, staff or faculty. The center is designed to be a research facility and will offer early childhood education, student and parent training, a model research environment and endless opportunities for USU undergraduate and graduate students to observe, tutor and experience hands-on learning internships.
About 12 children lined up on the dirt, each equipped with their own small spade and a yellow child-size construction helmet. Whether they realized the significance of this new building or whether they were just happy to be encouraged to play in the dirt, the happiness showed in their faces.
–c.h.j@aggiemail.usu.edu