In April 2004, the Friday Institute broke ground on its state-of-the art facility located on NC State University’s Centennial Campus in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was designed to be adjoined to Centennial Campus Middle School, connecting middle school students to professors and college students and delivering innovative teaching and learning strategies into the Wake County Public School System.
The Friday Institute building was envisioned to be a place that brought together researchers, practitioners and policymakers to lead the transition to next-generation K-12 education systems that would prepare students for success in the digital-age world. It is 33,000 square feet, hosts five public meeting and event spaces, and has about 90+ faculty, staff and graduate students. The building officially opened on November 9, 2005.
Join the Friday Institute in their celebration of their groundbreaking and the ground they’ve covered in the past 20 years, with commemorative speeches from Friday Institute Executive Director and Associate Dean for Translational Research Krista Glazewski and past Friday Institute directors, the dean of the NC State College of Education and a keynote from Nichole Pinkard, the Alice Hamilton Professor of Learning Sciences at Northwestern University, on the impact of the Friday Institute.
Event Details
Date: Friday, March 15, 2024
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Venue: Friday Institute for Educational Innovation
RSVP by March 8
20th Anniversary Groundbreaking RSVP
Featured Speakers
Krista Glazewski
As executive director of the Friday Institute, Glazewski provides executive leadership and management of the Friday Institute, setting the vision for the Friday Institute to help ensure its success. As the associate dean for translational research in the College of Education, Glazewski supports the development and maintenance of collaborations between faculty in the College of Education and researchers and staff at the Friday Institute.
Hiller A. Spires is executive director and professor emerita at North Carolina State University. She served as the founding director of the Friday Institute from 2002-2006, working with a team to lead the mission and vision, design of the building, initial research funding and the state-funded operations budget. She served as Friday Institute senior fellow from 2006-2019, developing the New Literacies Collaborative and a state-of-the-art school in Suzhou, China. She served as executive director of the Friday Institute and associate dean of NC State’s College of Education from 2019-2022. She also was Alumni Distinguished Professor of Literacy and Technology in the Department of Teacher Education and Learning Sciences.
Glenn Kleiman
Glenn M. Kleiman is a senior advisor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Previously, he was a professor of education at NC State University, where he served as the executive director of the Friday Institute from 2007-2018. Kleiman led the Friday Institute teams that developed the North Carolina Digital Learning Plan for K-12 Schools and collaborated with WestEd in developing the Sound Basic Education for All Action Plan for North Carolina.
Paola Sztajn
Paola Sztajn has been the dean of NC State’s College of Education since April 1, 2022. She is also a professor in the Department of Teacher Education and Learning Sciences. Previously, she had served as interim dean and was a special assistant for faculty research and development with the Office of the Provost and the university’s Office of Research and Innovation. She’s also the former associate dean for research and innovation in the College of Education and the former head of the Department of Teacher Education and Learning Sciences.
Nichole Pinkard is the Alice Hamilton Professor of Learning Sciences at Northwestern University as well as the founder of Digital Youth Network (DYN) and L3, a social learning platform that connects youth’s learning opportunities across the school, home, community and beyond. Through collaborations with city agencies, Pinkard and DYN’s work has ignited new models for reimagining, visualizing and documenting learning across spaces through the creation of existence proofs in urban contexts. Her current scholarly interests include the design and use of pedagogical-based social networks and socio-technical systems to support community-level ecological models of learning.
From its foundation, the Friday Institute has been breaking new ground. Look over the last 20 years of the history of the building of ideas.
Bill Friday, one of the namesakes of the Friday Institute, stands at the construction site of the Friday Institute.Bill Friday and Director Hiller Spires look over the construction of the Friday Institute inside the building.The College of Education leadership team with Dean Kay Moore, who spearheaded the development of the Friday Institute.Kenneth A. Branch was the inaugural recipient of the Friday Medal and received his award during American Education Week on November 15, 2006. The Friday Medal honors service in the field of education. William and Ida Friday were in attendance. This gallery wall fills a wall on the first floor of the Friday Institute and features images of children from around the world. Photography installation donated by Patricia A. Bell.Wachovia Innovation Hall is the largest of our meeting spaces, with a maximum capacity of 120. This room holds large professional development workshops, Friday Institute signature events and celebrations, and partner events.A collage of the exterior of the building and the initial interior of the building.In the Dudley Flood Gallery, the entrance of the building, there is a red and orange striped donor wall featuring the initial donors of the Friday Institute.BB&T is the second largest meeting space at the Friday Institute.The Friday Institute building opened on November 9, 2005.The collaboratory on the second floor of the Friday Institute is a space for people to meet and collaborate on their work.The Dudley Flood Gallery is named after Dr. Dudley E. Flood, an educator and former administrator at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) who was instrumental in desegregating North Carolina’s schools. In 2020, Dr. Flood received our Friday Medal award, which recognizes significant, distinguished and enduring contributions to education.
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Bill Friday, one of the namesakes of the Friday Institute, stands at the construction site of the Friday Institute.
