Built in 1973, the Lindquist Center houses the highly ranked UI College of Education.

But that’s not all.

It’s also home to the Iowa Testing Programs, which created the widely used Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the Iowa Tests of Educational Development.

The building is named for Everet Franklin Lindquist, who was the director of the Iowa Testing Programs when the organization created the standardized tests.

His expertise also led to the development of automated scoring machines that grade countless exams around the country. Lindquist was also a major impetus for the ACT program. Lindquist’s work funded the building of his namesake center.

Aside from those in the residential halls, the Weeg Computing Center — located in the Lindquist Center — is the only Instruction Technology Center on campus that is open 24 hours.

The Lindquist Center is also the home of the Curriculum Resources Laboratory, which has K-12 instructional material for students and faculty. The lab’s collection includes 48,000 children and young adult books, among other things.

Roughly 900 graduate students and 1,000 undergraduates are enrolled in the College of Education, which is the third largest of the UI’s 11 colleges. U.S. News & World Report ranked the College of Education — established in 1872 — the 28th best in the nation in 2007.

Once students graduate from the college, many stay in the state: Every county in Iowa has at least one instructor who graduated from the College of Education. Of the 342 graduates from the 2005-2006 school year, around half of them stayed in Iowa.