Past and Present Converge At Dedication

Utah State University President Kermit Hall spoke to a near capacity crowed at the dedication of the new facilities for the Edith Bowen Laboratory School and Emma Eccles Jones Center for Early Childhood Education. "Competition is global," he said. "Wherever new knowledge arises it is as available in London as in Logan. It is up to all of us to help prepare our students at every level to succeed in this exhilarating, challenging new world. In the parlance of a hockey coach, we must prepare them to skate to where the puck will be.”

 

First established in 1927, the Edith Bowen Laboratory School at Utah State University continues to build life-long learners and make significant contributions to education, thanks to the generosity of the Emma Eccles Jones Foundation that made the project possible with a $12.5 million donation.

 

The dedication was the crowning moment of decades of hard work and generosity built on the legacy of the school's first kindergarten teacher, Edith Bowen, who dedicated her salary for school supplies to benefit the school.

 

Utah Gov. Olene Walker was on hand to lend her enthusiastic support for the dedication. Speakers included Utah State University President Kermit L. Hall, Emma Eccles Jones' nephew and foundation board member Rick Lawson, Interim Dean of Education and Human Services Carol Strong and former dean Gerry Giodano. In addition, Utah’s Poet Laureate Kenneth Brewer read Convergence of Five, a poem he wrote for the occasion and that will hang in the school's atrium.

 

“This poem is dedicated to the memory of Emma Eccles Jones, whose generous gifts have built the Center for Early Childhood Education and the Edith Bowen Laboratory School," Brewer said. "Her philanthropy has enabled the work of Dewey, Bowen and Moore to continue to benefit us all.”    

 

President Hall outlined what the foundation's generosity has enabled the Emma Eccles Jones Center for Early Childhood Education and Edith Bowen Laboratory School to accomplish in the last two years.

 

"The dedicated facilities include an active learning environment with centers focused on the arts, music and science," he told the crowd.  

 

There is a math/science room that allows daily experiences in integrating science, engineering, math and technology, a foreign language lab, a gymnasium with a climbing wall (or possibly, President Hall surmised, as a new way "of driving teachers up the wall."), native gardens and interactive sculptures, a 400 seat auditorium, special education classroom and conference areas for psychology, speech language and parent teacher-student meetings. There is a healthy lifestyle center and a state-of-the-art kitchen.

 

As a part of the program the students of Edith Bowen, under the direction of Jill DeVilbiss, sang songs of appreciation for their new resources and facilities made possible by the foundation. The children walked off the new stage while singing a song with the melody Now I Walk in Beauty.

 

“There are more than 1,100 colleges of education in the nation," Hall said. "For the past six years, this college has ranked in the top 50 — recently as the 38th best. Edith Bowen School is now prepared to be an even more important training ground for students in Utah, the Intermountain West and beyond.”

 

“We are deeply grateful for these facilities funded by the Emma Eccles Jones Foundation," Carol Strong said. "The facilities honor Emma’s life and her commitments to developmentally appropriate early childhood education and literacy for all children.”