From Myrtilla Miner to the new School of Education and Learning Sciences, UDC's legacy reflects the enduring power of education to expand opportunity and strengthen communities.
When UDC launched the School of Education and Learning Sciences (SELS) earlier this year, it marked the beginning of an exciting new chapter. At the same time, it reaffirmed a mission that has been at the heart of UDC's identity since its founding: preparing leaders who strengthen entire communities through education.
The pursuit of education and the pursuit of freedom have always gone hand in hand. As SELS prepares to welcome its next cohort of undergraduate and graduate students, Juneteenth is another opportunity to reflect on the enduring connection between education, opportunity and freedom at UDC.
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas finally learned they were free, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. This national holiday is now both a celebration of freedom and a reminder of the ongoing work and responsibility of expanding opportunity to all. In civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer’s words, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” Her words underscore why educational access remains so important in the ongoing pursuit of equity and opportunity.
For UDC, that work has long been rooted in education.
SELS builds on the UDC history that began in 1851 when educator and abolitionist Myrtilla Miner founded the Normal School for Colored Girls to prepare young Black women in Washington, DC to become teachers. Educational opportunities for African Americans were severely limited in DC and many other communities across the country, especially in the South, and the school was met with immediate hostility. Within days of starting classes in its first rented space near present-day 7th St. and Pennsylvania Ave. in northwest DC Miner faced threats of mob violence, harassment from neighbors and legal pressure to close the doors. But she didn’t back down. Miner recognized what generations of educators have affirmed: education has the power to create pathways to opportunity, transform lives and impact entire communities.
That belief became the foundation of an enduring legacy at UDC.
As that early school evolved from Miner Normal School to Miner Teachers College, joined Wilson Teachers College to become DC Teachers College, and ultimately became a cornerstone of today’s UDC, the commitment to educational access and community impact remained constant. The educators who emerged from these institutions went on to shape classrooms and communities throughout Washington, DC and beyond. They became leaders, mentors and advocates for generations of students and families, and through their work education became not only a means of personal advancement but also a force for community development and civic engagement.
Now, nearly two centuries after the founding of a teacher-training institution dedicated to expanding educational opportunity, UDC is once again placing educator preparation at the center of a transformative vision for the future.
SELS is continuing to advance UDC’s 2024–2029 strategic plan “Delivering on the Promise” by strengthening the university’s academic identity, expanding professional pathways for students and deepening mission-aligned partnerships with DC Public Schools, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education and other organizations supporting regional workforce development.
As UDC President Maurice Edington said at its launch: “This is our strategy in action – strengthening academic excellence, responding to the District’s workforce needs and fulfilling our responsibility as the city’s public university. By investing in educator preparation and community partnerships, we are returning to our roots while ensuring opportunity leads to a positive impact.”
SELS offers undergraduate and graduate programs designed to prepare educators across a range of specialties, from early childhood and elementary education to special education and adult learning. Graduates will be prepared to help fill the critical persistent teacher shortages facing school districts across the country, including here in DC. The District of Columbia needs educators who are well prepared, culturally responsive and deeply connected to the communities they serve. As DC’s only public university, UDC is uniquely positioned to meet that need.
As DC Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn said: “As Washington, DC works to make our strong public school teacher corps even stronger, I am thrilled that UDC will assume its historic position at the center of the teaching profession. The new School of Education and Learning Sciences will ensure more of DC’s own young people enter this noblest of professions — and that local innovation in teacher preparation continues to grow.”
This commitment to the next generation of educators circles right back to the significance of commemorating Juneteenth. Juneteenth reminds the entire nation that freedom isn’t just a single historical event, but an ongoing journey. Expanding educational opportunity has been part of that journey from the beginning. Access to education has long been seen as a foundational tool of self-determination and a means of building economic and civic participation, and each generation inherits the responsibility to create pathways that allow others to learn, grow and contribute.
At UDC, that work continues every day.
This Juneteenth, UDC is honoring both its founding and its future. The university that began as a teacher-training school for Black women before the Civil War continues to embrace the transformative power of education through its newest academic unit. Through SELS and across all its colleges, schools and programs, UDC prepares students who will educate, lead, innovate and serve. In doing so, UDC carries forward a legacy that began with Myrtilla Miner nearly 175 years ago: one rooted in the belief that education expands opportunity, strengthens communities and advances the promise of freedom for all.