June 23, 2003, Northern Today Abridged

Board OKs 3 percent raises

NIU’s Board of Trustees voted Thursday to boost faculty and staff salaries by 3 percent “plus” in Fiscal Year 2004.

Raises for eligible faculty and staff employed by the university on or before Dec. 31, 2002, will come in two increments:

• an immediate 1.5 percent July 1 (or, for regular faculty, at the beginning of the contract period or Aug. 16), and
• an across-the-board 1.5 percent Jan. 1, 2004, for those who remain employed as of Dec. 31, 2003.

The 3 percent is dependent on the stability of the state and university financial environment.

However, to reflect the board’s and the administration’s commitment to enhance salaries to the maximum extent possible, the “plus” means additional efforts will be made to further improve the salary program if the budget situation calms down.

NIU President John Peters, a staunch advocate of raising salaries since his arrival in 2000, praised the trustees in advance of their vote.

“At your last meeting, Chair Sanchez asked me to look hard at our budget for any resources that could be directed toward salaries. I’m probably tipping my hand, but I believe we have some good news to share,” Peters said.

“At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I will reiterate something I’ve said since the first day I arrived on this campus: Improving faculty and staff salaries at NIU is my No. 1 priority. We’ve stumbled a bit due to the budget crisis, but we have not changed that priority.”

Specific salary competitiveness issues will be evaluated, including civil service pay rates (especially in the clerical/paraprofessional classifications) and in factors related to the university’s instructional mission.

Graduate assistant positions will be incremented according to guidelines established by the provost. Employees on temporary contracts who are reappointed during the new fiscal year might receive subsequent raises subject to the availability of funds.

Skoien elected chair of Board of Trustees

Gary Skoien is the new chair of the NIU Board of Trustees.

A member of the board since 1999 and its most recent vice chair, Skoien is the CEO and chairman of the board for Horizon Group Properties, Inc., and executive vice president and chief operating officer for The Prime Group, Inc., both based in Chicago.

Skoien, who succeeds Manny Sanchez atop the board, pledges emphasized efficiency and accountability as well as a sharp focus on private fund raising, enhanced educational experiences, critical public service endeavors and accelerated economic development activities.

He also indicated hopes to renew work on the West Campus development plan, an area he said holds great promise in helping the university realize many of its larger goals.

“It is a great honor for me to serve my state through membership on the NIU board,” Skoien said after Thursday’s election. “I have learned a great deal about the ‘business’ of public higher education, and have developed a tremendous respect for those faculty, staff and administrators who make this university run.”

A “very different” environment for higher education has begun, he said, and shows no signs of changing.

“It is clear to me that we must emphasize efficiency in everything we do. We must be even more willing than ever before to open up the books and demonstrate accountability for resources, people and programs,” Skoien said.

Joining him atop the board are Barbara Giorgi Vella as vice chair and Catherine M. Adduci as secretary.

Vermeer Quartet stirs Supreme Court
during D.C. command performance

After more than three decades of performances in practically every major city in North America, Europe, Japan and Australia, members of the internationally renowned Vermeer Quartet still find abundant joy in playing.

Especially when the venue is the Supreme Court of the United States and the impressed audience includes eight of its nine justices.

“It was a very rewarding experience, a reminder of how wonderful it is to be not only a musician, but an American musician,” said Richard Young, violist with the quartet which has been part of the resident artist faculty of the NIU School of Music since 1970. “It was thrilling not just to meet and play for the justices, but to talk at length with some of them.”

The Vermeer Quartet – Young, violinists Shmuel Ashkenasi and Mathias Tacke and cellist Marc Johnson – performed Beethoven’s “Serioso” quartet, Opus 95, at the May 22 concert. It moved Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to send a note of praise:

“Dear Shmuel, Mathias, Marc, and Richard: Serioso and intensely brilliant, your performance at the Court was simply super. In that unreserved judgment my colleagues heartily concur. With appreciation, Ruth.”

Formed in 1969 at Marlboro, the Vermeer has performed since at virtually all of the most prestigious festivals, including Tanglewood, Aldeburgh, Norfolk, Aspen, Mostly Mozart, Lucerne, Flanders, Bath, South Bank, Schleswig-Holstein, Orlando, Albuquerque, Stresa, Berlin, Ravinia, Spoleto, Santa Fe, Edinburgh, Great Woods and the Casals Festival.

The Vermeer’s members – originally from Israel, Germany, New York and Nebraska, providing a unique blend of musical and cultural backgrounds – are Fellows of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England, where they have presented annual master classes since 1978. They have been the resident string quartet for Performing Arts Chicago since 1984.

Learning about America through its literature

Faculty members in the NIU Department of English are using a novel approach, quite literally, to help foreign scholars better understand American culture.

Eighteen professors from such countries or regions as Argentina, Cameroon, China, Gaza, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Syria, Thailand and Ukraine will visit NIU this summer for an intensive six-week Fulbright Institute devoted to the study of contemporary American literature.

The English Department and International Training Office will host the scholars from June 30 to Aug. 12. The program will include trips to Chicago, New York City and Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. All the while, the foreign professors will study a diverse sampling of contemporary American novels, from works on urban, suburban and rural life to the literature of the American West.

“We have a need to understand other cultures, and they need to understand ours as well, maybe now more than ever,” says English Professor Keith Gandal, director of the program. “The hope is to plant the seeds of cultural understanding through literature study. Just as we have stereotypes about other countries, they have stereotypes about us, and contemporary literature helps erase those labels.”

The U.S. State Department is providing $210,000 for the Fulbright American Studies Institute program titled, “Redefining American Spaces.” Professors from the NIU Department of English and numerous invited scholars from across the country will teach the institute sessions.

“Although the foreign participants are scholars of American literature, most aren’t as familiar with contemporary literature as you might expect,” Gandal says. “Modern works are not yet institutionalized, so they’re not frequently taught in other countries.”

NIU hosted a similar Fulbright Institute last summer. Because it was successful, the State Department increased funding by 15 percent for this year’s initiative.

NIU School of Nursing grads
rank high on state boards

Graduates from the NIU School of Nursing continue to turn in brilliant scores on the state board exams.

Scores in the 95th percentile on the National Council of State Boards of Nursing Licensure Examination (NCLEX) rank NIU as sixth among Illinois’ 22 nursing programs with graduates in the fall semester of 2002 and 93rd among the nation’s 546 programs with fall semester graduates.

Comparatively, the pass rate is 86 percent for all nursing programs in Illinois and 85 percent for all U.S. programs. Nursing school graduates must pass the comprehensive four-hour test to officially become registered nurses and practice anywhere in the country.

For NIU, the impressive fall 2002 results come on the heels of a 98th percentile performance by May 2002 graduates.

Marilyn Frank Stromborg, chair of the NIU School of Nursing, is not surprised.

The school’s stellar faculty is willing to go the extra mile for students, she said. Meanwhile, NIU has instituted a prep program for NCLEX, implemented stringent criteria for students’ grades in pre-requisite courses and raised the grade point average necessary to remain in the school.

“We continue to have more exceptional applicants for our programs than we can handle,” Stromborg said. “These NCLEX scores show us, however, that we are choosing our students well and providing them the quality of education they need to become excellent nurses. We at NIU are doing our best to combat the national nursing shortage by adding well-trained and well-rounded nurses to the workforce who are more likely to remain in the nursing profession.”

Teague, Chappell film for WTTW special

NIU Steel Band Co-Director Liam Teague and Presidential Teaching Professor Robert Chappell will be one of about seven groups featured on a public television special called "Arts Across Illinois: Center Stage 2003" on WTTW, Channel 11.

The broadcast is scheduled for 8 p.m. Thursday, June 26, with a rebroadcast set for 2 p.m. Sunday, June 29. The WTTW crew filmed the NIU School of Music duo June 12 on the banks of the East Lagoon.

University Outreach names regional centers leadership

NIU Outreach has announced a new leadership structure for its regional outreach centers in Hoffman Estates, Naperville and Rockford.

Effective July 1, the NIU Outreach Centers will be reorganized as one center with three locations. The centers formerly were known as regional campuses.

“We have been developing an organizational structure and culture that supports the concept of engagement, the backbone of NIU Outreach’s mission and values,” said John Lewis, associate vice president for outreach.

“Our vision of engagement directs us to build partnerships that anticipate and support the present and future needs of the northern Illinois region. Standardizing facility operations and identifying new revenue sources will strengthen the foundation for expanded engagement activities.”

Under the new management structure, Director of NIU Outreach Centers Kathleen Gilmer will coordinate a leadership team of three assistant directors:

• Brian Becker will direct operations at NIU-Hoffman Estates and will oversee facility operations at all three centers. Becker has been business and operations manager at Hoffman Estates since joining NIU in 1995.
• Regina Girdauskas will direct operations at NIU-Naperville and oversee academic services for all three centers. Girdauskas has served as director of NIU-Naperville since the center’s opening in 2000. Previously, she was director of Benedictine University’s Institute for Management. In addition, she taught undergraduate and graduate level courses in management and behavioral sciences and has administrative experience in the private sector.
• Linda Traff will direct operations at NIU-Rockford and oversee conference services for all three centers. An NIU staff member since 1985, Traff has been operations and academic services manager at NIU-Rockford since it opened in 1995.

Thirteen NIU units combined last October into NIU Outreach, a division of Administration and Outreach under Vice President Anne Kaplan, to combine resources and diverse units to serve the northern Illinois region more efficiently. Lewis, who was assistant director of NIU’s Center for Governmental Studies, was named associate vice president for NIU Outreach.

The mission of NIU Outreach is to provide leadership and support to the university community as it engages with individuals, groups and organizations in meeting the diverse needs of the region.

NIU Outreach includes the Illinois Council on Economic Education, Illinois Manufacturing Extension Center, NIU eLearning Services, NIU Center for Governmental Studies, NIU Credit and Noncredit Services, NIU-Hoffman Estates, NIU-Naperville, NIU-Rockford, NIU Lorado Taft Field Campus, NIU Motorcycle Safety Project, NIU Outreach Conference Services, NIU Outreach Human Resources Education and West Suburban Technology Enterprise Center.

For more information on NIU Outreach, call (866) 885-1239 (toll-free), visit www.outreach.niu.edu online or e-mail NIUOutreach@niu.edu.

‘Jazz in the Night’ celebrates 12 years
with Kurt Elling, Kathy Kelly

The Campus Activities Board celebrates the 12th anniversary of “Jazz in the Night” – DeKalb’s answer to Ravinia – with festivities Saturday, June 28.

Returning to the scenic East Lagoon location, this year’s event will showcase two talents in the jazz scene today. Six-time Grammy nominee Kurt Elling takes the stage at 8:30 p.m. with the Laurence Hobgood Trio. United Kingdom publication “Jazz Review” says Elling, who has recorded six albums and several collaborations with other artists on his resume, might well be “the greatest male jazz singer of all time.”

Vibe artist Kathy Kelly and her band, Vibrafon, who have performed from Chicago to Switzerland with many jazz greats, open the concert at 7 p.m.

Come early to get great seats, and don’t forget lawn chairs, picnic blankets and food. Festival grounds open at 5 p.m., featuring inflatable games, canoe rides and much more.

Admission buttons are $3 for the general public and for children age 7 and older and are available in the NIU Campus Activities Board office, room 160 of the Campus Life Building. Children age 6 and younger are admitted free. Students enrolled in NIU’s summer session are eligible for one free button if picked up in advance through the Campus Activities Board.

In case of inclement weather, the concert will move to the historic Egyptian Theatre, located on Second Street in downtown DeKalb.

For more information, call 753-1580 or visit www.niu.edu/cab. Promotional support is provided by WNIJ (89.5 FM) and the DeKalb Daily Chronicle/DeKalb County Weekly. “Jazz in the Night” is made possible through funding support from the NIU Student Association and is open to all.

Student Housing and Dining
seeks Move-In Day volunteers

Although summer session has just begun, help is being sought for fall semester events.

Student Housing and Dining Services is seeking volunteers from the university community to help students and their families during residence hall Move-In Day, Aug. 21.

This fall, 6,300 students are expected to reside in NIU residence halls. Students who are new to the university arrive at times scheduled to even the traffic flow through the day. With the cooperation and participation of many volunteers, and with university police keeping order, SHDS is able to provide a well-organized introduction to students’ new residence hall homes.

Volunteers form the backbone of the operation. Faculty, staff, and administrators model the cooperation that bonds the university while they help students with their belongings and assisting families with directions. One of the major tasks is to pilot golf carts laden with luggage and milk crates between parking areas and the residence halls. Volunteers are asked to perform four hours of service. All materials and instructions (including a complimentary shirt) will be provided on the day of the event. That evening, volunteers are given discounts on the annual Huskie Bash.

Move-In Day volunteers are among the first faces seen by new students. So many students are positively impressed by the operation, they offer their labors in succeeding years to assist others with the transition to university life. Student volunteers – the NIU Guides – are residence hall students who help new students find their rooms and settle in.

To register as a volunteer, visit www.niu.edu/housing/volunteer.shtml. For more information, call Phyllis Jones, Student Housing and Dining Services, at753-9611.

6-23-03