"HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY SCHOOLS"
presented by Dr. Bruce Broderius
Dedication Ceremony and Ribbon Cutting
August 25, 2002

Today represents a true milestone in the 111 year history of what we today dedicate as University Schools.

This school has grown since 1891 from one teacher and forty pupils in a basement room next to a coal-fired heating plant to its present-day status. A ninth grade was added in 1899 with the high school being added in the next decade.

Early beliefs included innovative teaching and interaction with pupils as well as challenging subject matter content and pupil activities. The school moved from such titles as model school, training school, and laboratory school to the new name of University Schools. The concept of a "laboratory" was for new pedagogical ideas combined with a new sequence of content from various fields of study.

In 1902, one hundred years ago, there were many resignations due to controversies and disagreements. This ferment continued with progressive education strongly supported by President Frasier. Early emphasis on vocational education was evident. At one time the school had five different directors in five years. In recent years, laboratory schools in Pakistan, Thailand and Taiwan have been modeled after this school.

Through it all, many innovations have come out of the school to be disseminated through-out the nation and the world. Here are but a few:

• The first kindergarten in Colorado, started in 1892.
• The first high school drivers education program.
• The first middle school west of the Mississippi.
• The field testing site for BSCS Biology and Chemistry Study.
• A model school lunch program.
• The nationally known Houghton Mifflin Reading Series was piloted and refined in this school with such persons as Paul McKee, Elizabeth Lehr and many others.
• The first school in the nation to completely use a block schedule, which is the basis for the often replicated advisee/advisor program.
• The first school to fully integrate the acoustically handicapped in the total curriculum. It continues to stand as a national model in this area.

There have been many more improvements in educational practice too numerous to mention. What we know is that this school reinvents itself and has cloned itself as needed literally across the world. Our congratulations to present day community leaders, parents, children and many interested citizens on another step in the continuing education of children at a new site.

You are the only university-based laboratory school to be decommissioned and to reconstitute yourself, and survive intact, in the United States! It is quite amazing and thrilling to be part of this transformation in the first part of the 21st century.

All of us owe our appreciation to all of the past and present parents, the past and present staff, the grandparents of long ago and today, the pupils of the past and students of the present -- the challenges of the past and the survival in the present bodes well for the future.

In past years the student body and faculty chose the bulldog as the school mascot. This pugnacious, tenacious critter is known for standing its ground and being able to bite and hang on to the foe until the very end. Little did those early students and staff know how very fitting this mascot would be in the very survival of the school. This school has survived, to which we all bear witness today! We are the BULLDOGS!

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