published in the Chicago Tribune on June 15, 2006

Commencement of sorts
National-Louis University marks the move from its longtime Evanston campus to Skokie
By Lisa Black
Tribune staff reporter

Founded as Miss Harrison's Training School in 1886, National-Louis University has evolved since the days it offered parenting classes to the mothers of preschoolers--a forerunner to kindergarten.
 
This month, the private institution, which prepares first-time and veteran teachers for the classroom, celebrates another milestone by moving out of its longtime Evanston campus into a new facility in Skokie.
 
Summer classes will begin June 26 at the new campus at 5202 Old Orchard Rd., outfitted with 32 classrooms, a 250-seat auditorium and four computer labs, officials said.
 
Needing better highway access, more parking and more modern facilities, National-Louis sold the Evanston campus last year to Baker Demonstration School, a private elementary that National-Louis started as a place to train teachers.
 
National-Louis students will find the school easier to get to off Interstate Highway 94, said Glenn Heck, who worked for 31 years as a professor, provost and vice president before retiring in 1999.
 
Besides the Skokie facility, National-Louis operates a flagship campus in Chicago and has campuses in Lisle, Wheeling and Elgin, plus six out-of-state locations. Most of the university's 14,000 students are teachers and administrators pursuing graduate degrees; about 1,700 of them enrolled at the North Shore campus last year, officials said.
 
On Saturday, alumni reminisced during an open house that marked the final days at the Evanston campus, 2840 Sheridan Rd.
 
Helen Sams Nicholson, 71, of Loudon, Tenn., a retired teacher and member of the Class of 1956, recalled her college days fondly.
 
The school "had a fine reputation then, and they held on to it," Nicholson said.
 
The school was called the National College of Education, and Nicholson was among 92 graduates.
 
That compares with about 3,000 graduates awarded National-Louis degrees this month in Illinois and elsewhere, said Tracy Kremer, university spokeswoman.
 
The Evanston campus opened in 1926, serving as the university's mainstay until National-Louis diversified and added more centers in the 1970s.
 
"It was a prestigious place for elementary teacher training education. I was lucky enough to get a scholarship," said Nicholson, who said she earned about 75 cents an hour working in the university's library.
 
She served on a welcoming committee when her husband-to-be, James Nicholson, fresh out of the Army, enrolled at the school.
 
They enjoyed sneaking off to enjoy blueberry pie at a nearby eatery in Wilmette, she said, adding mischievously, "Sometimes we would cut classes to go down there."
 
James Nicholson, 73, was one of the few men to attend after the school went coed. Female classmates often attended dances to meet men enrolled at Northwestern University, Helen Nicholson said.
 
"I have to say that my education there left me feeling very confident when I went in to teach," Helen Nicholson said.
 
National-Louis earned a reputation for collecting research on teaching techniques and showing educators how to apply those "best practices" in the classroom, Heck said.
 
"I call it a responsive university," he said. "If there's a social problem, our faculty loves to get out there and solve it. ... Many of the graduate faculty are at the forefront of their academic disciplines."
 
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