Three key players in the combination of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s former colleges of education and family and consumer sciences visited the ISU campus Monday to speak about their experiences with that merger.

Marjorie Kostelnik, dean of Nebraska’s College of Education and Human Sciences; Julie Johnson, chairwoman of Nebraska’s department of family and consumer sciences, and Tom McGowan, chairman of Nebraska’s department of teaching, learning and teacher education, met with ISU faculty and staff throughout the day to discuss Iowa State’s planned combination of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences and the College of Education.

Julie Tarbox, secretary to the provost, said the visitors also met with some work groups designated by the Planning Committee for the Combination of the Colleges of Education and Family and Consumer Sciences to assist them with certain aspects of the merger.

Overall, Kostelnik said, Nebraska’s experience with its college merger, which occurred last June, was positive.

When she was the dean of the family and consumer sciences college, she and the dean of the education college suggested a merger to the university’s chancellor as a way to save money, she said.

“I realize in some ways [that Iowa State’s merger] is being handled differently,” she said. “But even though it wasn’t mandated quite as yours was, we had already spoken this to the world — how could we back out?”

Johnson said that, at first, she had some important questions when the issue of a college merger came up at Nebraska.

“Were we just going to be taken over? Would we still be valued persons?” she said.

“But then I considered, ‘Who is really thinking about the family?’ After seeing the similarities between the colleges, I saw that I could be true to serving families in a different way than I had before.”

Family and consumer science educators at Nebraska had been looking for a more seamless approach to education from childhood to old age, Kostelnik said.

“This was a way for us to put our money where our mouth is,” she said.

“It hasn’t all been roses, it hasn’t all been perfect, but now we can address the needs of children in a more holistic way.”

Kostelnik said remembering and honoring the history of the two former colleges is important in a merger because it is what the future of the new college will be built upon.

“There is a grieving process that needs to be completed, even by people who think this is a good idea,” she said.

“The two colleges both had a big blowout to celebrate their separate histories at the end of the school year.

We also had alumni write down their memories of the colleges, and we put them into notebooks we keep on display.”

The issue of identity was important to everyone involved in their college merger, Kostelnik said, but although naming the new college may have concerned them, it was not as central to the respect the college receives as they once thought.

“Students don’t come to a college, they come to a major,” she said.

“Names are important locally, but they’re not what establishes them nationally. I’m not trying to say identity isn’t important, but it resides in the students, in the work we do. We still have the same priorities, only the name has changed.”