MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT EDDIE PHILLIPS
As National Louis University celebrates its 140th anniversary, we have a special opportunity to reflect on where we have been, where we are today, and where we are headed. Since our founding, NLU has been distinguished by a willingness to ask important questions, challenge established approaches, and put new knowledge into practice to improve education and strengthen communities. That spirit of inquiry and innovation has carried us across generations—and it remains very much alive today. This annual report tells that story. Our history is marked by people who saw possibilities others had not yet imagined. Elizabeth Harrison transformed how educators thought about young children and the preparation of their teachers. The generations that followed expanded that spirit of inquiry—advancing professional education, bringing research into classrooms, shaping influential approaches to literacy, pioneering work in community psychology, and developing new models for making higher education more accessible. Again and again, NLU scholars have connected inquiry with practice and used what they learned to respond to the needs of their time. We can see that same tradition taking new forms today. Our faculty are helping shape the rapidly evolving conversation about artificial intelligence in education, asking not simply how new technologies can be used, but how they can strengthen pedagogy, educator judgment, equity, and student learning. The new McCormick Institute for Early Childhood builds on more than a century of NLU leadership through applied research, workforce innovation, and engagement with practitioners and policymakers. Across the University, faculty are publishing, presenting, securing funding, and translating their expertise into knowledge that reaches audiences locally, nationally, and internationally. The next chapter is also taking shape. Undergraduate students are under- taking ambitious research. Doctoral scholars are investigating questions deeply connected to the communities and professions they serve. New faculty are establishing research agendas that will influence NLU scholarship for years to come. And through Collab Lab, Research Week, internal fellowships, professional development, and faculty-led collaboration, we are creating more opportunities for ideas to cross disciplines, for scholars to learn from one another, and for new work to emerge. The questions we ask and the tools we use have changed dramatically since 1886. Our purpose has not. As our Statement of Scholarship reminds us, research and expert practice are at the core of everything we do. We pursue collaborative inquiry, generate usable knowledge, and embrace knowledge creation as a public good. For 140 years, NLU scholars have helped move ideas from inquiry to insight, and from insight to impact. That legacy now belongs to all of us—and so does the opportunity to carry it forward. I hope the work represented in these pages inspires us to ask the next important question, pursue the next promising idea, and imagine what our scholarship can make possible for the people and communities we serve. Our next chapter is ours to write.
For 140 years, NLU scholars have helped move ideas from inquiry to insight, and from insight to impact. That legacy now belongs to all of us—and so does the opportunity to carry it forward.
Dr. Eddie Phillips, Ed.D., President of NLU
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