ISU Honors Student-Teaching Pioneer’s Efforts

By Michele Steinbacher

NORMAL — Illinois State University has honored a retired professor who pioneered the U.S. educational model for student teaching and whose gift creates an endowed fellowship at the campus.

Cecilia Lauby-Ryan, the namesake of ISU’s teacher education center, arrived on campus in 1949 with the specific task of moving the student teaching experience off campus. Before that, student teaching only was in the university lab schools.

As it is today, ISU then was one of the largest producers of teachers in the nation. Her method of establishing off-campus student teaching sites was duplicated across the nation.

Wednesday afternoon, President Al Bowman hosted a luncheon for Lauby-Ryan and announced the 93-year-old was making a gift for an endowed fellowship.

“First and foremost, the gift will strengthen the (Cecilia J. Lauby Teachers Education) Center,” he said. But it also will provide professional opportunities for faculty, and in turn have a positive impact on students.

Officials declined to specify the dollar figure, but called it a “significant amount.”

Lauby-Ryan also announced she’d donate her writings and books to Milner Library’s special collections. Her personal papers and books will provide a historical look at her work, and allow access to ISU students doing research.

President Raymond Fairchild hired Lauby shortly after she left Indiana University, having completed a dissertation on the clinical teaching experience. A native of Vincennes, Ind., Lauby had worked as a teacher and principal before graduate work.

After arriving at ISU, she and 34 other educators gathered in New York to help draft the way to meet the growing need for teachers in the post-World War II environment. The group developed into the American Association for Colleges of Teachers Education, said Dianne Ashby, vice president of advancement and former dean of the College of Education.

Lauby-Ryan worked at ISU through 1973, and watched the student enrollment grow from 2,000 to 20,000. When she began in ISU’s office of student teaching, she was the sole staff member. By the time she retired, 300 field supervisors worked with her.

The student teacher expert spent much of her early career traveling the state establishing student teacher placement sites, county by county.

Making contact with superintendents’ assistants, who were mostly women, she quickly learned who were the best teachers to work with, said Lauby-Ryan.

The retired professor knows her work made a difference at the Normal campus, said Ashby. But she decided to bestow the gifts of money and archivable papers because she wanted to leave something to enhance ISU’s national recognition as a leader in teachers’ education, said Ashby.

“This is an outstanding institution in preparation of teachers. … and that’s not an easy job,” said Lauby-Ryan.