TWU’s School of Education celebrates 20 years and 750 alumni with an open house plus children’s book launch

Trinity Western has been awarding bachelor of Education degrees and full B.C. teaching certification since 2001. Over the past 20 years, more than 750 teachers in B.C., across Canada, and around the world, have been trained and educated at TWU. 

As TWU’s School of Education celebrates its 20th anniversary, it is moving into the newly renovated DeVries Centre on campus. An open house for the School of Education is happening this Saturday, October 23, from 1–4 p.m. Registration is on Eventbrite.

An Indigenous Sharing Circle will be hosted from 2–3 p.m. with TWU Siya:m, Patti Victor, and Education professor, Matthew Etherington. Open house guests can peruse a book table featuring published books written by current and former faculty, and celebrate the book launch of Have Courage and Be Kind, a children's book about navigating a pandemic by Luella Neufeld, former TWU educator.

The newly renovated DeVries Centre provides double the classroom capacity compared to the School of Education’s previous location, more office space and plenty of natural lighting. The new location also allows the School of Education to bring together its various related partners under one roof, including the Society of Christian Schools in BC. The upper floors of the DeVries Centre is dormitory housing for TWU students.

Trinity Western has been awarding bachelor of Education degrees and full B.C. teaching certification since 2001. TWU’s School of Education now offers both undergraduate and master’s degrees.
 

Over the past 20 years, more than 750 teachers in B.C., across Canada, and around the world, have been trained and educated at TWU.

"That is 750 miracles,” Dr. Allyson Jule, Dean of the School of Education, expressed, “750 people who felt a call to teach and who came to Trinity Western University for their preparation for the classroom. Such impact is being felt in the many lives of the children and youth that our graduates have influenced.”

Once known as the Northwest Building, the DeVries Centre at TWU underwent significant upgrades over the summer. The building is now renamed after the donors who funded the project, the DeVries family. Five endowed scholarships were also established to provide student financial support for generations to come.

An early opening celebration and ribbon-cutting ceremony took place on August 28, 2021. Three generations of the DeVries family attended the opening celebration and took part in the ribbon cutting, together with TWU President Mark Husbands. The University expresses “heartfelt thanks and profound gratitude for the incredible generosity and kindness of the DeVries Family for their investment in Trinity Western University, and in the lives of many future educators.”