UO celebrates groundbreaking for HEDCO Education Building

Work on an immense excavation project that is transforming the southwest side of the University of Oregon campus stopped just long enough on the morning of October 26 to allow a ceremonial groundbreaking for the HEDCO Education Building. The new facility is the centerpiece of a $48.1 million project that will nearly double space for the UO College of Education. Completion is expected in the summer of 2009.

"We are building beyond walls," said UO President Dave Frohnmayer. "Today we celebrate the first new construction for the College of Education since 1980, creating a facility worthy of the program's international reputation. The research, scholarship, and training that will be conducted within the walls of the HEDCO Education Building will reach far beyond the campus."

Expansion and renovation of the education complex is a top priority for Campaign Oregon: Transforming Lives and is the latest major project to be initiated in the state's most successful philanthropic effort.

The new building is named for a California-based foundation whose president, 1969 UO graduate Dody Jernstedt, holds bachelor's and master's degrees from the college's communication disorders and sciences program. The foundation's lead gift of $10 million in 2004 launched the "Building Beyond Walls" fundraising effort and inspired the 2005 Oregon legislature to authorize $19.4 million in general obligation bonds for the project. The project gained momentum with a $12.5 million lead gift, including a $2.5 challenge grant from philanthropist Lorry Lokey. About $1.5 million is left to be raised to meet the challenge.

All told, gifts from more than 300 alumni, community educators, and members of the UO faculty and staff are covering about 60 percent of construction costs, according to Michael Bullis, dean of the College of Education and Sommerville-Knight Professor of education. "The HEDCO Education Building will stand as a dream fulfilled and a promise for the future," he said.

For many of the school's faculty and staff members, the new building means a welcome end to the era of "temporary" housing in trailers that has lingered for nearly four decades. "This building will open up new areas of collaboration by providing the space needed to bring together the college's clinical, teaching, and research efforts," said Rob Horner, associate dean for research and Alumni-Knight Professor of education.

The building site will connect the college's existing quad of historic brick buildings at 1571 Alder Street with its Clinical Services Building, which is situated southwest of the MarAbel B. Frohnmayer Music Building on East 18th Avenue.

The design for the new building was created by Thomas Hacker Architects Inc., of Portland. A hallmark of the project is the premium placed on making the entire education complex more accessible for individuals with disabilities.

The HEDCO Education Building will provide specialized spaces for teaching, assessment, and therapeutic services along with a faculty research hub, student services center, and learning commons. Integrated clinic facilities will serve the college's three clinical programs: communication disorders and sciences, couples and family therapy, and counseling psychology.

About the Lead Donors to the College of Education Expansion and Renovation Project

HEDCO is a private foundation that supports a wide range of philanthropic endeavors, from gifts to purchase equipment and provide technology for projects advancing scientific and medical research to grants for building projects that support professional practice or address social welfare, such as housing for the homeless, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, YMCAs, and shelters for abused women.

Lorry Lokey's gifts to the UO total $132 million for academics including $12.5 million for the College of Education's expansion project. A native of Portland, Lokey is the founder of Business Wire, the world's leading international news release wire service. He credits much of his success in life to the education he received at Alameda Elementary School and Grant High School in Portland.