1886
Elizabeth Harrison has a radical idea for her time: create a college to train women to teach kindergarten primarily in immigrant communities. Harrison opens Miss Harrison’s Training School at the Loring School on Prairie Avenue in Chicago. The modern American kindergarten movement begins.
1906
The Chicago Kindergarten College incorporates as a non-profit entity and moves to a new location on Michigan Ave. The school pioneers educational delivery systems by offering branch classes in other cities, as well as a correspondence course.
1930
The college changes its name to the National College of Education, and introduces the first four-year teacher-training program in Illinois. The preparation of Early Childhood Educators remains at the core of the new college and continues to thrive over the next 10 decades.
1985
Dr. Paula Jorde Bloom receives $600 from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) to start the Early Childhood Professional Development Project. This project led to the founding the Center for Early Childhood Leadership, whose goals were to identify, define, and support the competencies of early childhood program administrators and to bring credibility to the importance and complexity of the administrator’s role.
1986
Michael W. Louis makes a historic, $30 million donation to the NCE, among the largest gifts to any college or university in Illinois.
1990
In recognition of the Louis family’s tremendous generosity and support, the institution is renamed National Louis University, a comprehensive university composed of three colleges, one of which is the National College of Education, which continues to emphasize teacher preparation.
1991
Blueprint for Action is published. A centerpiece of the Center’s training, this book provides a framework for understanding the dynamics of organizational change in early care and education programs.
1993
Taking Charge of Change™ (TCC), the Center’s flagship leadership training program, is launched.
1999
NLU moves to its flagship downtown Chicago location in the historic Peoples Gas Building.
2000
The Center conducts a comprehensive study of the early childhood workforce in Illinois, resulting in the publication of Who’s Caring for the Kids? The report served as an important resource for policymakers for strengthening the state’s professional development system.
2000
The Center conducts a comprehensive study of the early childhood workforce in Illinois, resulting in the publication of Who’s Caring for the Kids? The report served as an important resource for policymakers for strengthening the state’s professional development system.
2001
Leadership Connections™ National Conference is launched.
2004
The Program Administration Scale (PAS), authored by staff at the Center, is published.
2005
With $3.6 million in gifts from the McCormick Foundation and the Josephine and John Louis Foundation, the Center is renamed the McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership and an endowed chair is established. Dr. Bloom is named the first recipient of the Michael W. Louis Endowed Chair.
2007
Illinois launched the Quality Counts quality rating system (QRS) and the McCormick Center assumes the role of conducting all on-site classroom and program quality assessments required for the star-rating system.
2008
Research supporting the reliability and validity of the Business Administration Scale for Family Child Care (BAS) is completed and the instrument, authored by staff at the Center, is published by Teachers College Press.
2009
The McCormick Center launches Aim4Excellence,™ a national online director credential that utilizes cutting-edge technology to deliver engaging content.
2011
National Louis University celebrates its 125th year and is respected as one of Chicago’s oldest, most innovative private universities, providing a quality education for a new type of learner: one who is pursuing an education while managing other personal and professional goals.
2013
Illinois receives a Race-to-the-Top–Early Learning Challenge grant and launches ExceleRate™ QRIS. The McCormick Center takes the lead in providing professional development for quality specialists, infant-toddler specialists, and mental health consultants.
2015
A new initiative for family child care providers, Taking the Lead, is launched in Chicago. It is one of the only leadership academies focused on family child care business development and leadership.
2016
With input from leaders in the field, the Center develops the Whole Leadership Framework, a seminal, practical guide to the interconnected and overlapped domains of early childhood leadership: administrative leadership, pedagogical leadership, and leadership essentials.
2018
National Louis University acquires Kendall College. This acquisition allows Undergraduate Educator Preparation programming to go online! The Early Childhood Education programs become some of the fastest growing in the university, tripling in size in under three years. NLU quickly becomes the largest preparer or Early Childhood professionals in Illinois, at the undergraduate, graduate and professional levels.
2022
The Undergraduate College launches the ECE Competency-Based program, creating a pathway for the incumbent early childhood workforce to leverage their experience and knowledge, shortening time and cost to degree completion.
2024
The Robert R. McCormick Foundation recognizes decades of foundational and transformational work that the McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership and National Louis University have engaged in to impact the profession. The Foundation makes a landmark $5M investment in early childhood.
2025
The McCormick Institute for Early Childhood is launched, and the Center for Early Childhood Leadership celebrates its 40th anniversary. The Institute develops Building Better Business (BBB), a business leadership academy for family child care professionals, and supports the state of Illinois' efforts to increase the quality of Early Care and Education for it's youngest learners through an Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) project, tied to the Smart Start Quality Supports work.
