In 2017, the College of Education and Health Professions at the U of A celebrates several anniversaries. Twenty years ago, the name was changed from College of Education to better reflect the diversity of programs offered. It is also the 20th year since the Master of Arts in Teaching graduated its first students, and the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing was dedicated. The nursing school had been added to the college as a department 10 years earlier, in 1987.

Going 100 years back, in 1917, the U of A Board of Trustees approved a request by faculty to create a college of education from what was then a school of education.

Teacher education has been integral to the U of A since its founding in 1871. It began in what was called the Normal Department, a phrase included in the legislation creating the university. The term "normal" was used commonly in the 19th century to refer to the imparting of norms of exemplary teaching, and so to pedagogical training or to an institution devoted to teacher preparation.

This was according to a history called Yesterday and Today that Christopher Lucas, a professor of higher education, wrote about the College of Education and Health Professions at the U of A.

"The normal feature of the university will be the first to bear fruit," predicted Trustee Albert W. Bishop in the 1872 commencement address. "With experienced teachers secured, the material to work upon here, and the necessary appliances for instruction obtained, the friends of this institution are very much encouraged by what they see has already been accomplished."

He believed the state's emerging public school system had begun to create a "new order of things in society" and the urgent need now was for an armory in which to forge classroom teachers, Lucas wrote.

To learn more about the history of the college, read reflections of former deans and see the full text of Lucas' book, visit Our History.