At the beginning of this decade, the Board of Trustees authorized the granting of the Bachelor of Arts in Education degree (1904). At the end, the school name was changed to the “Iowa State Teachers College” from the “Iowa State Normal School” (1909). These changes reflected the institution’s growing reputation and importance in the state. By this time, the approximately nine hundred and eleven students attending UNI arrived on campus with their trunks, stayed in multiple boarding houses popping up around “Normal Hill,” and took trolleys up and down College, Main, First, and 24th streets (24th St. was renamed Seerley Blvd. in 1943), and down Rainbow Drive, all the way to Waterloo. By 1909, the student body grew to 1,070.

In the 1900s, owing to a large appropriation of funds by the Iowa legislature, the institution was finally able to undertake expansions and improvements that put it on equal footing with the higher education institutions in Ames and Iowa City. The students were excited to learn of the first new building, the [Old] Auditorium, which offered “real society halls” for the debate clubs and provided a place to house all students, making public entertainment accessible to the school and its friends. “Everyone is rejoicing that the new building will be finished in the near future. …The classes in Physical Culture were unable to meet Tuesday because the workmen were cutting the opening for the corridor between the gymnasium and the basement of the new building. Let us remember however that ‘all development begins with pain,” wrote the Normal Eyte. A grand dedication was held for the Auditorium on Jan. 30, 1902, with the Governor of Iowa, Albert Baird Cummins, and the members of the General Assembly in attendance. The East Gym (now known as the Innovative Teaching and Technology Center) was completed in 1905. This gym, built for both men and women, reflected the growing interest in athletics that had marked the decade prior. Besides exercise classes, the building also hosted banquets, examinations, and other large gatherings.

The greenhouse (later called the Botanical Center), completed in 1907 and equipped with an aquarium by 1908, provided laboratory facilities for work in natural science classes. In 1909, two large concrete pools were added–one to house a young alligator and water plants, and another for game fish. Two monkeys, Jocko and Maud, arrived in the fall of 1909. In his column in the school newspaper, President Seerley urged the students to pay the greenhouse a visit and “spend an hour learning the names of the plants that are growing so finely.”

The construction of the Laboratory building, later named Begeman Hall (simply called “the Laboratory building”), originally began in 1903 but the facilities weren’t completely ready for use until the fall of 1907. The class of 1908 hosted a Halloween party there. In 1907, a new president’s house was added to the list of the campus’s new structures, as the original house proved to be too small for the entertainment and receptions President Seerley was expected to host. The President and his family moved into the new house on Oct. 4, 1909.