SU Breaks Ground on New Teacher Education and Technology Center
SALISBURY, MD---Before a festive audience of friends of the University and members of the campus community, Salisbury University President Janet Dudley-Eshbach officially broke ground today on the campus’s new $54.7 million Teacher Education and Technology Center (TETC), a showcase building for education in the State of Maryland and the mid-Atlantic region.
The three-story, 165,000 square-foot facility will replace Caruthers Hall, current home of the Samuel W. and Marilyn C. Seidel School of Education and Professional Studies. Opened in 1955, Caruthers, which first began as a demonstration elementary school and served the needs of generations of student teaching interns, is a third of the size of the TETC. The departments of Education and Social Work within the Seidel School have since outgrown its space.
“The construction of the new Teacher Education and Technology Center at Salisbury University underscores the importance Maryland places on education,” said Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. “The preparation of the best-educated teachers and their skilled use of the latest technology in our school systems are necessary for educating the next generation of Marylanders. This new facility will serve that purpose well.”
“The TETC shall serve as a gateway to Salisbury University's exhilarating future, and will affirm our stature as a Maryland university of national distinction,” said Dudley-Eshbach. “This complex will revolutionize the manner in which teaching, learning and discovery take place upon this campus. The enhanced classroom, laboratory and studio space will help us open the doors of higher learning to even more of Maryland's most promising students, while the state-of-the-art learning technology will prepare our graduates with the tools to succeed in today's knowledge-based economy."
“Salisbury University has long had a reputation for educating quality teachers for Maryland’s schools. This new home for the Seidel School of Education and Professional Studies will enhance that reputation at a time when a new generation of teachers is needed to replace many who are now retiring. The building is a testament to the value that SU and the University System of Maryland place on teacher recruitment, preparation and support,” said USM Chancellor William E. “Brit” Kirwan.
According to a Maryland Higher Education Commission recent study, the state’s public schools needed to hire nearly 7,500 new teachers for this academic year. In 2006, however, Maryland teacher preparatory programs produced just slightly more than one-third of the number needed by these school systems.
With state-of-the-art technology, the TETC’s distinctive features include a 124-seat mega-com
puter lab, tiered classrooms with capacities of 60, 80 and 120 seats, a Distance Learning Center, the May Literacy Lab, Adult Education Clinic, Carol and Jim Powers Reading Room as well as a Resource Center and outdoor classrooms.
Technology on campus moves to the next level in the TETC with a new Integrated Media Center (IMC). It will serve both Seidel School and Fulton School of Liberal Arts students. The IMC will include a large television production studio, video demonstration lab, music recording studio, digital integration lab, editing facilities, video and audio production bays, and photography center. A cutting-edge multi-media art exhibition gallery includes plasma screens and its own control room.
Bringing faculty together from across disciplines, the IMC will allow students to create in digital film, animation, music composition, Web, DVD, CD, broadcasting, performing and visual arts, and other cross-disciplinary media. The integrated concept may also lead to the development of new majors and additional areas of concentration.
The TETC will be located at the corner of College Avenue and U.S. Route 13. The east and north wings at the intersection will be connected by a colonnaded rotunda with a two-story atrium. It will provide SU with a distinctive visual identity and a welcoming gateway into the main campus from this major thoroughfare.
The traditional, academic Georgian structure is broken into three wings with brick walls and gabled roofs. The architectural design complements Holloway Hall, the campus’s first building and an area landmark. The TETC’s main entrance from campus is marked by a tower on the southwest corner, and the three wings frame a large grass-covered courtyard.
Dr. Dennis Pataniczek, dean of the Seidel School, believes the building will become a showcase for education statewide and in the mid-Atlantic region. “This is an exciting addition to the campus and to the community,” he said.
The design firm is Ayers Saint Gross Architects + Planners of Baltimore. The construction manager is Holder Construction Company with offices in Atlanta, Phoenix and Washington, D.C. Completion is expected by summer 2008.
For more information visit the SU Web site at www.salisbury.edu or call 410-543-6030.
The late Samuel W. Seidel, a prominent Eastern Shore businessman, civic leader and philanthropist, and his wife, Marilyn, endowed Salisbury University's School of Education and Professional Studies in 1997 with a $1 million challenge gift. The Seidel School became the first named endowed school of education in Maryland and, at that time, only the second named endowed school of education in the country. This gift was the culmination of a lifelong special relationship between the University and the Seidels. The civic-minded couple had financed some 14 scholarships throughout the region—seven of them at SU.
Seidel School Student Population
Undergraduate: 1,250
Graduate: 550
Total: 1,800
Tenure-Track and Full-Time Faculty
Education: 24
Social Work: 11
Health, Physical Education and Human Performance: 8
Total Seidel School: 43
Seidel School Undergraduate Majors
B.A. in social work
B.S. in athletic training
B.S. in early childhood education
B.S. in elementary education
B.S./B.A. with Secondary Teaching Certificate
B.S. in exercise science
B.S. in health education
B.S. in physical education
Seidel School Graduate Programs
M.A. in teaching
M.Ed. in early childhood education, elementary education, middle/secondary education, post-secondary education/teaching and learning with technology
M.Ed. in public school administration
M.Ed. reading specialist
M.S. in mathematics education
M.S.W. (Master of Social Work)
33 schools partner with SU for the Seidel School’s Professional Development School Program. Partners include eight school districts in Maryland and Delaware.