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the College of Education building was
The result of the
2000 university bond
opportunity that the citizens of North Carolina
passed. And for new campuses like UNC Charlotte, that meant
much needed capital construction was able to occur. For the older campuses in
the system, much needed renovation. It was a transformational moment
for the University of North Carolina system.
And in our case, the College of Education
space that had been so difficult for so long,
meant that we could think together
Who we needed to be, Environmentally.
and it was
a great opportunity. The campus gave us the privilege of having a dedicated
space with our name on it.
And, to think together with the architectural firm
to design that space.
It scared me to death as a dean. I’m not an architect. I’m not a visual spatial
person.
But I’m so thankful
that the architectural firm of Gantt Huberman
could take our words, can translate them
well. We did a lot of focus groups in the college, with our faculty and our
students,
and named what we wanted.
And what we wanted
was a warm welcoming space with lots of natural light and a place where future
teachers could enter and say, “this is a good space.”
This is a space that says
I've come to a place that values me,
and a place where we can work together, and we can gather,
not only for classes
but to do projects, to connect with our faculty
where we can study together,
where we can work with our students. And that space was created
I’ve told this story often, but I love telling it. When we first moved
into
the College of Education building, it was in that spring semester of
2005.
I was walking in the front door, and behind me were a
couple of undergraduate students. And I heard them talking.
One student said to her friend
“I just love this building. It’s so traditional on the outside
and so warm and wonderful and with it on the inside.”
And her friend said
“That’s just like teachers.”
And I thought, what a wonderful
encapsulation of what we try to do.
The building is also located in the new
heartbeat of the campus.
and that I think that says a lot of
this campus’ historic commitment
to the preparation of educators, and I
cherish that campus value.