Shorts

Free short courses offered in February
Customer Support Services will offer free short courses for faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students and annuitants throughout the semester. Courses are being offered for such topics as GroupWise, Windows 2000 Professional, Computing Basics, MS Excel Basics, MS PowerPoint 2000, SAS Basics, WebTools-Basics, MS Word 2000 Basic Formatting, MS Word 2000 Tabs & Tables, Dreamweaver 4 Basics and MS Access Tables & Forms. For more information or to enroll, call 753-8100 or e-mail shortcourse@niu.edu.

Donate canned goods on Valentine's Day
The Office of Student Affairs, Affirmative Action/Diversity Resources and Transportation are holding a canned food drive on Valentine's Day. The drive takes place from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 14. Bring any canned goods to vans, marked with balloons and signs, in the following parking lots: Campus Life Building, parking garage, Chick Evans Field House, Art Building, Human Resource Services and the Campus Child Care Center. All donations will benefit Sycamore's Food Pantry, Hope Haven, Trans Vac, Safe Passage and Salvation Army. Volunteers are needed to load goods from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. or drive the vans from 9:30 a.m. to noon. For more information, call Michelle Bringas at 753-1421.

February workshops and seminars offered
The Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center is offering workshops and seminars throughout Feburary for faculty and SPS. "Securing Documents and Collecting Data Using Adobe Acrobat 5.0 Forms" will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 5. "Rethinking and Reformatting Teaching Materials for Online Delivery" will be held from 9 a.m. to noon Friday, Feb. 8. "Blackboard I (Basics)" is scheduled from 1 to 4 p.m. Monday, Feb. 11. Participants will learn the basics of creating and developing a course in Blackboard, NIU's Web course management software. "Blackboard II (Intermediate)" is scheduled for 9 a.m. to noon Friday, Feb. 15. Advance registration is required for all workshops. For more information or to register, contact Amy Deegan at 753-0595 or email adeegan@niu.edu. Locations will be made available when you register. Information concerning prerequisite courses is available at http://www.niu.edu/facdev/media/prereq.htm. If you register and are unable to attend, notify Deegan two days in advance.

Parking lots closed for basketball games
The north end of parking lot 20 and all of parking lot 21, except reserved spots, will be closed to faculty, staff and students at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 5, for basketball game parking. Cars parked in the lot before 4 p.m. will be allowed to remain.

Faculty/staff discount for summer camps
The children of NIU faculty and staff are eligible for a 10 percent discount for all summer sport camps through Intercollegiate Athletics. Camps include football, soccer, swimming, basketball, volleyball, tennis and more. A complete listing of the camps, along with dates and descriptions, can be found at http://www3.niu.edu/athletics/camps/index.html. For more information, call Sue Hansfield at 753-5300 or e-mail shansfield@niu.edu.

Study Abroad office hosts campus visitor
The Study Abroad Office will host Dan Hart, academic relations coordinator of Cultural Experiences Abroad (CEA), from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today, Feb. 4. Hart will meet with Study Abroad Office staff, as well as participate in class presentations and speak with students and faculty. Hart will hand out informational materials from 3 to 4 p.m. in DuSable Hall. For more information, visit http://www.niu.edu/niuabroad.

Sign up for Bowl for Kids' Sake 2002
The annual Bowl for Kids' Sake will take place this month at the Holmes Student Center's Huskie Den. The event will benefit Big Brothers Big Sisters of DeKalb County, a mentoring organization for local children. To join, form a team of five or six people. Each team member should contact sponsors for flat amount pledges, and collect a minimum of $50. Pledges should be turned in during your scheduled bowling time. The available days to bowl include Monday, Feb. 18, Tuesday, Feb. 19 and Wednesday, Feb. 20. Times slots are 4, 5, 6 and 7 p.m. For more information or to register your team, contact Jill Soyka or Tammy Allen at 758-8616.

Forman to speak on racial attitudes
Professor Tyrone Forman from the University of Illinois at Chicago will present "From Pet to Threat: Minority Concentration, School Racial Context, and White Youth's Racial Attitudes," at noon Wednesday, Feb. 13, in the Holmes Student Center Capitol Room. Forman is active in the Assocation of Black Sociologists and has been awarded a major grant from the Russell Sage Foundation. The event is sponsored by the Department of Sociology, Center for Black Studies and the Graduate Colloquium Committee. For more information, call the Department of Sociology at 753-0365.

Sign up for NIU all-college Relay for Life
The 2002 Relay for Life of NIU and Kishwaukee College will be held April 20-21 at Chick Evans Field House. The team registration fee is $10, and there should be 10-12 people per team. For more information or to register, contact Amy at niucac@hotmail.com or call Dave Klepitsch at (800) 942-6985. Visit the American Cancer Society Web site at http://www.cancer.org for details.