Board approves tuition increase,
technology surcharge

Responding to two year’s worth of state budget cuts totaling more than $30 million, NIU’s governing board has approved an average 11 percent increase in tuition and a new, five-year surcharge to fund technology improvements on campus.

Trustees also directed NIU President John Peters to look for funds that might be made available for faculty and staff salary increases during the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Meeting in DeKalb last week, trustees voted to accept a new tuition plan with different rates for upper- and lower-division undergraduates. Under the plan, freshmen and sophomores (lower division) will pay 9 percent more in tuition this fall, while juniors and seniors (upper division) will see a 12 percent tuition increase.

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Every fall, Leroy Mitchell awaited his annual phone call from McKinley "Deacon" Davis.

Davis, founder of NIU's CHANCE program, would press Mitchell for the latest enrollment numbers. How many students, Davis would want to know, were taking advantage of an opportunity for a college education that regular admissions standards might have denied?

"This program, long after he left the university, was his first love," said Mitchell, who took over the CHANCE program in 1980. "It really was a part of who he was."

NIU President John Peters announced earlier this month that he has changed the program's official name to the Deacon Davis CHANCE program. Davis and former NIU President Rhoten Smith launched CHANCE (Counseling, Help and Assistance Necessary for a College Education) in 1968 to recruit, retain and graduate educationally disadvantaged students.

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Four members of Northern Illinois University's Operating Staff have been chosen to receive the Outstanding Service Award for 2003.

The recipients are George A. (Joe) Baird of Materials Management, Joyce A. Gardner from the Office of the Provost, Jodi Tyrrell from Human Resource Services and Janice Vander Meer of the Department of English.

About 1,800 employees make up the Civil Service staff. Each year, four are selected by a committee of their peers to receive the award of plaques and $1,500. They were honored at a May 2 banquet.

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Nearly a decade ago, then-NIU Student Regent John Butler came to Admasu Zike with a mandate from his constituents.

"The students demanded that they should be allowed to take at least one course in multiculturalism," said Zike, associate vice provost for academic support services, "so they understood this demographic change, this diverse population of the outside world."

But tacking another class onto the graduation requirements would burden not only students seeking to finish school on time, the pair concluded, but also the university, which would need to hire additional faculty.

An idea struck them.

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Two University Police officers plan retirement party
University Police Sgts. Albert "Swede" Ekstrom and Dave Wickstrom are leaving the force after a combined 50 years on the job.

A party in their honor is scheduled from 1 to 4 p.m. Friday, May 16, at the old farmhouse grounds on Annie Glidden Road just north of Baker's Square. Presentations are at 2:30 p.m. Please park in lots H and D1 on West Campus near the party location.

Annual steam outages announced
To perform maintenance and repairs on high pressure steam lines on campus, the Physical Plant and Heating Plant will have its annual steam outage on the following dates:

West Campus: Beginning at 9 p.m. Sunday, May 18, through noon Friday, May 23. This will include Neptune and all buildings west of Carroll Avenue, except Stevenson, and various other smaller buildings not served by steam. Domestic and heating hot water will not be available.

East Campus: Beginning at 9:30 p.m. Sunday, May 25, through 6 p.m. Thursday, May 29. This will include all buildings east of Carroll Avenue, except for various other smaller buildings not served by steam. Domestic and heating hot water will not be available.

Any questions or concerns may be addressed to Kevin Vines, chief engineer, at 753-6090 or via e-mail at kvines@niu.edu.

Summer arts camps offered
Summer in the Arts at Northern offers academic arts camps for children in sixth-grade through high school. NIU employees receive a discount for these one-week residential camps in dance, jazz, theatre and visual arts.

Theatre Arts Camp Junior for students currently in grades 6-8 will be held from July 13 to July 18. Dance Camp (grades 7-12), Jazz Camp (grades 8-12), Theatre Arts Camp Senior (grades 9-12) and Visual Arts Experience (grades 8 -12) all will be held from July 20 to July 25.

Call Renee at 753-1450 for more information.

Meanwhile, the NIU Community School of the Arts summer session begins the week of June 16. Among the summer offerings are classes in garden drawing, watercolor, basic drawing, puppet theatre, stage dialects, improvisation, theatre games, gamelan, group guitar, and early childhood music. Private lessons and assorted music ensembles are also available. Call 753-1450 to request a registration booklet.

Faculty Development announces summer program schedule
The Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center has announced 15 summer programs for faculty and Supportive Professional Staff.

Topics range from portfolio workshops, creating an effective online syllabus and preparing students for online learning to "mind-mapping," problem-based learning and redesigning courses for online delivery.

Programs also will be offered for Blackboard, CD-DVD burning and digital photography.

Call Amy Deegan at 753-0595 or e-mail facdev@niu.edu to pre-register. For more information, visit http://www3.niu.edu/facdev/events/summer03.htm.

ITS announces training
coordination meeting
Information Technology Systems will host a training coordination meeting from 10:30 a.m. to noon Tuesday, May 13, in Room 306 of the Holmes Student Center. The meeting is open to all technical support staff involved with computing and e-learning related training at NIU.

The meeting will feature ResTech Training and Development, a Blackboard update, ITS Summer Short Course offerings and training alternatives and an open discussion. Please contact Paula Propst (ppropst@niu.edu or 753-9064) or Larry Vint (lvint@niu.edu or 753-8053) for additional information.

Correction: 46 honored at SPS recognition luncheon

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A second day-long summit of educators on P-20 - the initiative to promote a pre-school through graduate school perspective - has pinpointed five areas for concentration.

Chief among them: to keep talking about ways to improve schools.

"What we definitely heard is that we need to continue," said Sherry Eagle, superintendent of schools in West Aurora District 129 and one of the conference moderators.

The group, including nearly 100 representatives from elementary and secondary schools, two- and four-year public and private colleges and universities and education-related agencies, spent April 23 at NIU-Naperville in active conversation concerning the vital role of communication and collaboration across the system to improving student performance.

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U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis, D-Chicago, offered the keynote address May 2 at the
annual Educational Services and Programs CHANCE program and Student Support Services graduation celebration luncheon.

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NIU presented an honorary doctoral degree Saturday to Argonne National Laboratory Director Hermann A. Grunder, recognizing his many outstanding contributions to the field of physics.

Grunder accepted the honorary Doctor of Science degree during the commencement ceremony for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the Convocation Center.

"Dr. Grunder couldn't be more deserving of this honor," NIU Provost Ivan Legg said.

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When Romualdas Kasuba was offered the job as dean of the new engineering school at Northern Illinois University, half of his friends told him he would be crazy to take the job. The rest told him he would be crazy not to.

Seventeen years later, as he prepares to step down as dean of the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology, Kasuba is glad he listened to the latter group.

"I like challenges and hard work," he says, adding that he got plenty of both when he came to NIU.

Arriving in June 1986, he inherited a program established on paper in the fall of 1985. It had some aspects of an engineering school, but was far from a full-fledged college.

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Students from Wilbur Wright College in Chicago spent April 14 at NIU exploring careers in health care - and the value of a bachelor's degree when pursuing them.

Invited to campus through the School of Nursing's Rural Adult Nurse Practitioner grant, the students began their day with speakers, videos and hands-on activities in the nursing lab. Their afternoon involved meetings with students, faculty and administrators from across the NIU College of Health and Human Sciences.

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NIU students in a special-topics course on the films of Michael Moore got a telephone call during their last class before finals - from the controversial filmmaker himself.

Moore, whose "Bowling for Columbine" won the Academy Award this spring for best documentary, conducted an 80-minute, question-and-answer session on speakerphone with more than 100 students in the class.

Jeffrey Chown and Gary Burns, both professors in the NIU Department of Communication, teach the course. Chown had sent several letters to Moore inviting him to visit the class.

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Consider it a king-size comment card.

The hospitality administration program in the School of Family, Consumer and Nutrition Sciences has created a 18-member advisory committee of educators and hospitality professionals to seek advice on curriculum - and facilitate internship and scholarship opportunities.

"NIU has a reputation of being a great university. With the new focus on the hospitality program, it will be a wonderful new partner with our industry, as well as a great potential source of hospitality professionals," said Jeffrey Wolff, a 1976 NIU alum and vice president with the Marriott Corp. who was elected chair of the committee.

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NIU English Professor Michael Day has been appointed to a key post with the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC).

Day will serve as chair of the organization's Committee on Computers in Composition and Communication. The committee includes nine appointed members and a task force of more than a dozen volunteers who contribute ideas and feedback on a regular basis.

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Sondra King received the Outstanding Educator Award at the Illinois Dietetics Association (IDA) Spring Assembly held at the University of Illinois in Chicago in April.

King has been a professor at NIU for 26 years in the Department of Family, Consumer and Nutrition Sciences in the College of Health and Human Sciences. She retired from teaching in the fall of 2002 and continues as professor emeritus.

King served on the IDA board for five years and on the board of the district dietetic association the Rock River Valley Dietetic Association (RRVDA) for eight years, including her role as president.

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NIU research scientist Phil Young of DeKalb has won third place in the International GeoMedia Best Practices Competition, a contest that drew entries from university educators worldwide displaying their best uses of geographic information systems (GIS) software.

Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions, an industry-leading geospatial solutions provider, sponsored the competition. Young will pick up his award and make a presentation on his contest entry during the GeoSpatial World 2003 convention in New Orleans from May 19 to 21.

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