July 21, 2003, Northern Today Abridged

Teague, Alexis ready to lead NIU Steel Band

Thirty years after G. Allan O’Connor founded the NIU Steel Band, international pan superstar Liam Teague is taking the figurative baton.

A native of Trinidad and Tobago who became the recognizable face – and hands – of the NIU Steel Band since his arrival on campus more than a decade ago, Teague has grand ambitions for the country’s first and foremost collegiate steelband.

“I want to make NIU the Mecca, at least in the United States, of the steelband. I want to make this the place people come to study,” Teague said. “We are one of DeKalb’s best-kept secrets. God willing, the world will be talking about this band. That’s my goal.”

Paul Bauer, director of the NIU School of Music, has high confidence in Teague and Cliff Alexis, the band’s longtime co-director.

“The foundation that Al O’Connor laid for this ensemble is similar to the work that Ron Modell did with the NIU Jazz Ensemble, and Liam Teague comes to us as the pre-eminent performing artist on steel pan, having been mentored by Al O’Connor,” Bauer said.

“I am very excited about the future development of the band, continuing with the important traditions and going in new directions under a great artist. Liam Teague’s cultural heritage is a tremendous asset,” he added. “Of course, Cliff Alexis continues to provide us with state-of-the-art instruments, as he has been a leading innovator in the making and design of steel pans for decades.”

Teague and Alexis, who came to NIU in 1985 to build and tune steel pans as well as compose and arrange music, both hail from the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the country where the steel pan was invented.

Both point to the need for more funding as critical, and finding it is among Teague’s plans.

Most pannists from their homeland cannot afford to earn bachelor’s degrees here. Most of those who come to the United States to study do so only for graduate degrees – in NIU’s case, the Trilla Steel Drum Company provides as many dollars as it can for graduate-level study – but Teague feels strongly that he needs four years to properly convey his methods.

“We are blessed to have Les Trilla,” Teague said. “We need more Les Trillas.”

Teague also wants to move the annual standing-room-only NIU Steel Band concert from the Boutell Memorial Concert Hall to a larger venue and add guest artists, changes he hopes will attract more fans and convert others, including some faculty and students in the Music Building.

Alexis strives to help homeland from NIU

Cliff Alexis, co-director of the NIU Steel Band, focuses much of his attention on his native land of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, trying to improve the state of music education there from his workshop here in DeKalb.

“From a financial and musical literacy standpoint,” Alexis said, “the steelband in Trinidad is at somewhat of a disadvantage when compared to the United States.”

Many children of Trinidad are taught to play the steel pan, but never learn to read music. Instead, they usually learn by rote: Someone shows them how to play a song, and they duplicate it. Some professional bands in Trinidad spend hours in rehearsal working on just one song – or even just a fraction of one song – while a band of music-reading pannists can master many tunes in the same time period, providing they have equal or similar playing technique.

Change is taking place – albeit slowly – prompting Alexis and NIU colleague Liam Teague to action. Alexis has been involved in various capacities as an arranger, educator and tuner in both the high school and collegiate system for 29 years.

“My intention was always to take steel pan further in terms of the educational part of it,” Alexis said. “I want to see a kid come to NIU, or any other (U.S.) university, and join a steelband with a knowledge of music that’s coherent. I want to see them be competitive.”

He also is working with Pan Trinibago, the governing body for the steelband in Trinidad and Tobago, to encourage the idea of collaborating with the government to teach the pan in elementary and secondary schools.

Unfortunately, Alexis said, some groups in his homeland are resistant to the notion of using the pan – their national instrument – as the main instrument in learning music in school. Many were stunned to see the NIU Steel Band use music stands during their unprecedented second-place finish in the 2000 World Steelband Music Festival, he said.

“They are protective in Trinidad. This is their instrument, invented by them, and if you put (Western) music to it, you’re going to lose it,” he said. “We want to say, ‘No, you’re not going to lose it. You just take the other part of it, getting coherent musically.’ ”

Suburbanites dig the work of NIU contract archaeologists

It was a dirty job, but this time everyone wanted to do it.

Or so it seemed recently as archaeologists and student workers in NIU’s Contract Archaeology Program conducted an excavation in west suburban St. Charles. The NIU crew turned the job into a unique educational experience, inviting all comers to visit the site and get their hands dirty.

The dig site was located at Campton Hills Park, where a private surveyor in 1990 discovered a spear point fragment that dates back thousands of years. The St. Charles Park District commissioned the NIU survey of about one-half acre at the popular park to find out if any other Paleo-Indian artifacts were buried there.

Over the past two weeks, NIU archaeologists and graduate students led a series of tours that drew about 200 visitors, from families to seniors to amateur arrowhead collectors. The NIU dig also attracted the attention of numerous newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times, Daily Herald, Beacon News in Aurora, Courier News in Elgin and Kane County Chronicle.

“The visitors find it interesting that there’s an archaeological site in their own back yard and that prehistoric people once lived in this area,” said Karen Atwell, an NIU archaeologist who led the excavation. “It was a good experience for the public.”

Many of the visitors volunteered to sift through dirt in search of artifacts, and some even discovered tertiary flakes, or byproducts of stone tool manufacture. “The flakes are fragments of chert that have been knocked off larger pieces to make stone tools,” Atwell explained. “The point where the stone has been struck is easily recognizable.”

The spear point discovered in 1990 has been kept at the Illinois State Museum in Springfield.

The St. Charles Park District plans to someday build a community center and nature center at the site of the dig, so park officials were eager to have the area thoroughly investigated. They also wanted to make the archaeological dig a learning experience for the public.

“We feel that the more we know of the natural and cultural history of our parks, the richer the experience,” said Mary Ochsenschlager, manager of natural resources for the park district. “We will no doubt use the information discovered in our interpretations for our nature center visitors and in our nature programs.”

Founders Memorial Library moves reference desks

Some users of the Founders Memorial Library reference desks won’t have as far to travel this fall.

The library is consolidating all reference services to the main desk on the first floor in response to university-wide budget cuts. The library’s total rescission exceeds $400,000.

Physical moving of about 40 percent of the reference materials from the second and third floors will begin soon.

The consolidation, meanwhile, will permit double-staffing of the desk during peak hours – all efforts will be made to provide at least two different broad fields of expertise throughout these busy times – as well as professional assistance on Saturdays.

“We’ve been subject to the budget cuts, as has every other area of the university. We were unable to fill some recently retired positions, and these fell in the general reference area,” said Arthur Young, dean of the University Libraries. “Looking at a general reference area that would’ve been severely understaffed, the idea of consolidation came to the front burner. The more we discussed it, we saw some positive aspects.”

This fall’s consolidation affects only an estimated one-third of reference desk users, Young said, because two-thirds of the services already originated from the main floor location.

Librarian offices will not move. All other services, including bibliographic instruction and subject specialist expertise, also remain in their familiar locations.

NIU’s belt-tightening spared the libraries until late in the process – “due to the excellent support of President John Peters and Provost Ivan Legg. They should be applauded,” Young said – and removed only $50,000 from the library materials budget, a 1.5 percent reduction.

“Despite the recent cuts, the University Libraries continue to have a higher level of support than that found at many other comparable universities,” Young said. “The long-term commitment of our faculty has made a big difference.”

NIU School of Music scholarship endowed
in memory of late faculty member

Carmen Pursley has made a generous donation to create an endowed scholarship in the name of Wilbur Pursley, her late husband and former NIU School of Music faculty member.

Additional contributions to the Wilbur Pursley Endowed Scholarship in Music are invited. Should anyone wish to make a contribution, checks should be made out to “NIU Foundation” with the memo reading “Pursley Endowed Scholarship.”

The purpose of the fund is to provide scholarship support for junior or senior undergraduate trombone or composition students majoring in music at NIU. This fund shall be known as THE WILBUR PURSLEY ENDOWED SCHOLARSHIP IN MUSIC.

Wilbur Pursley was born in Farmland, Ind., where his love for music was nurtured along with an intense interest in sports, airplanes and flying. He received a bachelor of arts degree at Ball State University and a master of music degree from the Eastman School of Music. In 1962, he was awarded the Ph.D. in music theory from the Eastman School. While a student at Eastman, Pursley studied composition with noted composers Alan Hovahness, Bernard Rogers and Wayne Barlow.

His long musical career began in 1949 at Humboldt State University in Arcata, Calif., where he was instrumental in organizing the marching band. There he also taught music theory and conducted the orchestra. This was followed by a 14-year tenure at Marshall University in Huntington, W.V. In 1964, he joined the music faculty at NIU, where he remained a dedicated faculty member until his retirement in 1991.

Student Affairs schedules July 22 blood drive

A blood drive sponsored by Student Affairs and Heartland Blood Centers is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday, July 22, in the Holmes Student Center. Inventories of all blood types reach critical levels in the summer.

Please call 753-1573 or e-mail mwild@niu.edu to schedule an appointment or to sign up to help with registration and refreshments. Walk-ins are welcome. Blood donors must bring photo identification.

State raises lodging rates

The State of Illinois has approved lodging rate increases that went into effect July 1, NIU Assistant Controller Linda Timm said.

The rate increases from $60 to $70 per night for lodging in the counties of Champaign, Kankakee, LaSalle, McLean, Macon, Madison, Peoria, Rock Island, St. Clair, Sangamon, Tazewell and Winnebago. Rates in all other downstate counties are up from $50 to $60 per night.

All other rates will remain unchanged.

HRS schedules orientation for new faculty, staff

Human Resource Services has scheduled this year’s orientation sessions for new faculty and Supportive Professional Staff whose appointments begin in August.

The orientation program presents new academic employees with basic information on employment, insurance and benefits, payroll, campus resources and support services and an introduction to university non-discrimination and compliance policies.

All new employees must enroll in the health insurance plans provided by the State of Illinois Central Management Services (CMS) within 10 days of the starting date of their appointment.

Many new faculty appointments begin Aug. 16 with a 10-day insurance enrollment deadline of Tuesday, Aug. 26. Employees who fail to enroll within the 10-day time frame will be enrolled automatically in the Quality Care Health Plan.

However, the dependent coverage must be established by the employee. Therefore, unless enrollment is completed within the CMS 10-day time frame, dependent coverage cannot be established until next May during the Benefits Choice Period, with proof of medical insurability required at that time.

All sessions are held in Room 178 of the Human Resource Services building on Lincoln Highway. Scheduled orientation dates are:

• 1 to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 6
• 9 a.m. to noon Tuesday, Aug. 12
• 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 19
• 1 to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 20

If new faculty and SPS cannot attend these special orientation sessions, they may attend the benefits portion of the weekly orientation provided for civil service and other employees. These sessions are conducted from 9 a.m. to noon each Monday at HRS and are scheduled for Aug. 4, 11, 18 and 25.

For information, please contact the HRS Service Center at 753-6000 or visit the Human Resource Services Web site at www.hr.niu.edu. A brochure on benefits and services for faculty and SPS is also available at the Swen Parson HRS Service Center, located in room 232.

Course Mapper no longer available for Fall 2003

Course Mapper (CM) – made unnecessary by Blackboard – will no longer be available after summer 2003 in ITS student computing labs.

Hours of processing time will be saved by eliminating CM, which allowed faculty and students to share access to drives G, H, I, J, K and L. These drives will no longer be available.

Faculty and students now are encouraged to use the Blackboard course management system to share files and store course-related documentation. Blackboard allows the flexibility of using the World Wide Web to access shared information in a secure environment.

For more information on how to migrate to Blackboard, please contact the NIU Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center at 753-0595 or e-mail facdev@niu.edu.