KDSN RADIO News
UNI marks 150th anniversary with a full year of Panther pride events
The University of Northern Iowa is kicking off the year-long celebration of its 150th year on Monday with a series of events for students, staff, alumni, and families.
Randy Pilkington, co-chair of UNI’s Sesquicentennial Celebration, says the first in a long list of festivities on the Cedar Falls campus is the premiere of a ceremonial bell that’ll be rung for the first time on Monday at 11 AM in Commons Plaza.
“The Sesquicentennial Bell is a special bell that was cast just for our 150th anniversary,” Pilkington says. “It’s going to be rung three times, one for the past, one for the present, one for the future, and this will be a ceremonial bell that’ll be close to our Campanile and used for special occasions like the beginning of the school year, the end of the school year, and other celebrations.”
Also on Monday, a dedicated sesquicentennial exhibit will hold its grand opening in Rod Library, showcasing UNI’s evolution over 15 decades.
“Starting with the Orphans’ Home after the Civil War, moving to the State Normal School, which was started in 1876, and then all the way up to the university we have today,” Pilkington says. “It’ll be a great opportunity for those who went to the Iowa State Teachers College or the State College of Iowa to go in and look at the artifacts and the history and everything that happened at UNI over the last 150 years.”
The week’s signature events include the Sesquicentennial Kickoff and Homecoming Bash on Friday, which he says will be a campus-wide celebration filled with rallies for Panther pride.
“We’ll have a big homecoming bash on the central part of campus, and this will include Purple Experience, it’s a Prince tribute band — we need to have purple brought into this, obviously, so it made a lot of sense,” Pilkington says. “We’re going to have other family fun that day, a big bash, fireworks, everything on campus that night.”
The plan is for the celebration’s momentum to carry through into the fall of 2026.
“We’ll be celebrating the entire year going forward, and then next year on Homecoming, on October 10th, we’ll have the big celebration and the culmination and the ending of our 150th year and a lot of other activities, our Campaign on Campus,” Pilkington says. “Everything wraps up next year, but between now and then, we’ll be having a lot of events.”
He says the sesquicentennial is a milestone for the campus, the Cedar Valley, and the state of Iowa, and sets the tone for the next 150 years.
