A New Institute For 21st Century Schools

For Bill (’41) and Ida Friday, improving education is not just a fleeting conversation topic. It’s a deep-rooted passion. The Fridays know first-hand that feeding students’ thirst for knowledge and curiosity guarantees our state’s long-term economic, cultural and social well-being. In short, fueling a child’s learning on multiple levels has a far-reaching impact on the community at large.

An Exceptional Gift For An Exceptional Facility

Like-minded, generous donors agreed that the state’s ongoing intellectual capital begins in pre-K-12 classrooms. With their gifts totaling $10 million, The William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation was established. Named in honor of the state’s well-known and respected education advocates, The Friday Institute is committed to making educational advances happen on many levels — from classroom instruction to informing policies. Specifically, the facility supports strategic alliances among key education stakeholders, including the academic community, state government, the private sector, non-profit organizations and local school communities. These alliances enable the Institute to conduct research, develop resources, promote improved teaching and learning, and provide services to educators and policymakers to build a strong educational foundation for students across North Carolina.

A Model Education Institute

The 33,000-square-foot facility, which is adjacent to the Centennial Campus Middle School and part of the College of Education, focuses on five main initiative areas: providing technology infrastructures for K-12 schools; using multi-media and networked technologies to facilitate innovative teaching and learning in the 21st century; developing educational leadership; evaluating educational innovations; and analyzing local, state, and federal educational policies and their implementations.

Each initiative connects faculty members, students, teachers, education leaders, and research scientists — all of whom work collaboratively to advance the Institute’s mission through specific projects within initiatives. Across the board, the Friday Institute is committed to schools in rural and underserved areas.

The Institute’s work has resulted in projects with a noticeable impact. The NC 1:1 Learning Collaborative is one such project. It supports K-12 schools and districts, that are implementing programs in which every student and teacher has an Internet-connected computer or computing device, by providing resources and professional development. Another influential project is the Innovation Leadership Academy — a co-operative venture between The Friday Institute and the College of Education’s Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Department. The goal of the project is to help school system leaders build the internal capacity to plan, implement, support, evaluate and sustain innovative programs in their schools.

The work of the Friday Institute focuses on partnerships that foster the development of the next generation of schools in North Carolina and throughout the nation, that will prepare students for success in the global, technology-rich, knowledge-based workplace and society in which they live. And along the way, these schools will be grooming our state’s and nation’s future Bill and Ida Fridays.