Shorts

NIU COMMUNITY SCHOOL OF THE ARTS CLASSES
The NIU Community School of the Arts is offering music, art and theatre classes for adults and children beginning soon. In addition to private lessons on all instruments, classes include early education music classes for children 18 months to six years, a world music class for ages six and up, guitar classes for all ages, a percussion ensemble, a steel band ensemble, a youth orchestra and chamber ensembles. The Saturday art class for children returns, along with intermediate portrait drawing and an intermediate drawing class. Theatre classes also are offered in safe rigging for live performance (for adults) or in the basics of acting (for ages nine to 12). For more information or to register, call Renee Page at 753-1450.

SUMMER CAMPS TO BE OFFERED IN THE ARTS
The College of Visual and Performing Arts will host five arts camps this summer, including Jazz Camp, Visual Arts Experience, Dance Camp, Theatre Arts Camp Senior and Theatre Arts Camp Junior. Children of NIU employees and students will receive a discount. For more information or to register, call Renee Page at 753-1450.

DONATE MUSIC FOR PERFORMATHON 2002
The NIU Community School of the Arts needs donations of old sheet music, used CDs, records and any other music paraphernalia for the Performathon music swap on Saturday, March 9. This all-day event features performances from many students in the community school, as well as a student art exhibit, teacher recitals and the music swap. Bring your donations to Music Building room 132 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. All donations are tax-deductible. Proceeds will provide scholarships to students enrolled in the community school. For more information, call 753-1450.

INTERNSHIP CAREER FAIR
The 19th annual Internship Career Fair will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20, in the Holmes Student Center Duke Ellington Ballroom. More than 120 employers are expected to attend. All faculty and staff are welcome to attend and speak to recruiters. For more information, visit the Cooperative Education/Internship Program Web site at http://www.niu.edu/coop.

NIU OFFERS FOX VALLEY SHUTTLE TO AURORA
NIU's Fox Valley Shuttle is now running on Friday, Saturday and Sunday to the Aurora Train Station and Fox Valley Mall. The shuttle is open to all faculty, staff, students and community members. The shuttle leaves the Holmes Student Center at 2, 5 and 8 p.m. on Fridays and at 11 a.m., 2, 5 and 8 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. There is a nominal fee to use the shuttle. For more information, contact Christy Hartnett at 753-9922.

NIU ART GALLERY PRESENTS "RETRO"
The NIU Art Gallery in Chicago presents "Retro," an exhibition exploring retro phenomenon as it relates to contemporary art. The exhibition runs through Saturday, March 2. The NIU Art Museum is hosting a bus trip to the gallery on Saturday, Feb. 2, for a free, informal presentation. Transportation for the bus trip is $8 for Art Museum members, $10 for students and seniors and $12 for others. The registration deadline is Wednesday, Jan. 30. For more information or to register, call 753-1936.

FREE SHORT COURSES OFFERED BY CSS
Customer Support Services is offering free short courses for faculty, staff, students and annuitants this month. Courses include GroupWise, Computing Basics, MS Excel Basics, MS Excel _ Data Manipulation, MS Excel _ Data Summarization, Collaboratory and Podia Technology, MS Word 2000 Basic Formatting, Publishing on the Web, Netscape Composer and Introduction to Student Computing. For more information or to enroll, call 753-8100 or e-mail shortcourse@niu.edu.

FDIDC OFFERS JANUARY WORKSHOPS, SEMINARS
The Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center is offering several workshops this month. "Blackboard II (Intermediate)" will be presented from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 22. Participants will learn the synchronous and asynchronous discussion features in Blackboard. "Creating Images for Educational Web Pages" will be held from 9 a.m. to noon Friday, Jan. 25. Participants will receive tips on creating Web graphics and images. "Beginning Adobe Acrobat (Basics)" will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Monday, Jan. 28. The class will teach basic functions for converting documents to Portable Document Format (PDF) using Adobe Acrobat. Participants should be familiar with using Windows and the PC platform and have used Blackboard for online course delivery. Advance registration is required for all workshops. To register, contact Amy Deegan at 753-0595 or e-mail adeegan@niu.edu. Information concerning prerequisite courses is available at http://www.niu.edu/facdev/media/prereq.htm.

SPORT SKILLS PROGRAM FOR CHILDREN
A Sport Skills Program for children will be offered at NIU from Monday, Feb. 4, through Wednesday, April 3. The program will allow children to experience the fun of movement, develop sport skills and learn about fitness and health. The class is open to children ages six through 10, and will be held in Anderson Hall gym 100. The fee is $100. Temporary parking permits for $5 also are available. The class will be held from 4 to 5 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays during the 10-week period. For more information, contact Luis Garcia at 753-0677 or David Grossman at 753-0623.