Co-op Turns 100! Birthday Bash and Book Close a Chapter in UC History

The University of Cincinnati is the global birthplace of cooperative education. The practice was founded here in 1906, allowing students to learn and earn by alternating quarters spent in the classroom with quarters of paid, professional work related directly to their majors.

The 2005-2006 school year marks

co-op’s centennial

, and on- and off-campus audiences have taken note. Both local media and national – media as diverse as the 

Los Angeles Times

, Newhouse News Service,

Cleveland Plain Dealer

,

Young Money

magazine and others – have applauded the co-op concept during its anniversary year. Locally, campus and community joined in a “100 Cool Co-ops” contest, casting more than 60,000 votes to pick the coolest of UC’s present-day co-ops.

The hoopla continues this spring:

• The coffee-table book, The Ivory Tower and the Smokestack: 100 Years of Cooperative Education at the University of Cincinnati, will be unveiled during celebrations at 1 p.m., Wednesday, April 19, 2006, in the UC Bookstore. Rich in photos, the book brings to light some wonderuflly unexpected, intriguing and perhaps overlloked episodes in co-op's 100-year heritage. Events on April 19 include a presentation of the book to University Libraries, book signings and refreshments. The event is free and open to all. After the event, the book will be available in the bookstore and online at http://www.uc.bkstr.com

• Representatives from the nation’s 500 co-op colleges and universities -- along with representatives from co-op universities in Austria, Canada, Finland, France, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines and Singapore -- will gather on the UC campus the week of April 23 to honor the university that founded the practice of co-op.

• UC will induct the first honorees into the newly founded Co-op Hall of Honor at a banquet set for 7 p.m., Monday, April 24, 2006, in the Great Hall and in Rooms 400A, 400B and 400C of Tangeman University Center.

• At that banquet, UC will show a simulation of a new 15,000 square foot garden named for co-op’s founder, Herman Schneider. That garden will be situated between McMicken Hall, the Joseph A. Steger Student Life Center and Baldwin Hall. This Herman Schneider Memorial Garden will eventually include low granite seating walls containing the names of the Co-op Hall of Honor inductees, a co-op timeline and other information relating to co-op.

• About 200 co-op employers are expected to attend the National Commission for Cooperative Education Corporate Symposium set for June 20, 2006, at the Kingsgate Marriott Hotel.

More on co-op

• New book Marks UC's Role as Birthplace of Co-op
• UC Inducts First Honorees to Co-op Hall of Honor
• His Family Returns to Remember Co-op's "Co-optimistic" Founder
• UC's Co-op Heritage Paves the Way for University's Future