NIU faculty will help shape
history in Rockford schools

U.S. history specialists at NIU are joining efforts to beef up American history lessons in the Rockford Public Schools.

Congressman Don Manzullo, R-Egan, announced early this month that the Rockford public school district is receiving a grant of nearly $1 million through the federal Teaching American History program. Distributed over three years, the funding will provide Rockford teachers with professional development opportunities geared to improve the quality of history instruction at the fifth, eighth and 11th grades.

History professors from NIU, Rockford College and Rock Valley College will lead the professional development workshops.

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John Niemi spent 50 of his 71 years as a teacher, collecting myriad honors during a storied career as what colleagues call the exemplary “professor as student advocate.”

He rose from humble beginnings, studied and taught around the world, and found friends for himself and partners for his university along the way. During his eight years teaching at the University of British Columbia, he met and married his wife, Muriel, who holds a doctorate in English from Harvard University.

Yet Niemi, who died Tuesday, July 6, desired one simple legacy.

“(I would like) to have people remember that I cared,” he said during an interview five years ago. “I cared about students.”

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Robert L. Caswell, director of Procurement Services, died June 27 in Madison, Wis. He was 67.

Caswell was an NIU employee for 20 years, the last 14 of those in Procurement Services. He opened the Healthroads store in DeKalb and operated it for a decade prior to joining the university.

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NIU physicist Jerry Blazey continues to play a pivotal role in one of the world’s most complex, most publicized and most ambitious physics experiments — with a goal to shed light on no less than the building blocks of the universe.

Blazey has been re-elected to a two-year term as spokesperson of the DZero project at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia. He and co-spokesperson John Womersley serve as point men for the project, which brings together the expertise of more than 600 researchers from nearly 40 U.S. universities and 40 foreign institutions.

“The biggest challenge is coordinating the efforts of all the disparate groups and projects,” Blazey says. “It’s a pretty big store to mind.”

DZero is one of two proton/antiproton particle collider experiments at Fermilab, where scientists are exploring the subatomic universe using the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, the Tevatron.

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For those whose experience with the tale of “Beauty and the Beast” starts and ends with Disney’s 1991 animated classic, the scene is unforgettable.

Beast, who has finally found true love despite his appearance and his temper, is swept up in a tornado of light, twirling toward an ominous sky as his fur, claws and fangs melt away to reveal the handsome prince within. Anything is possible with animation.

Accomplishing the same feat with an actor on the stage of a regional theater is another matter, though, and producers in Florida and Tennessee have turned to NIU’s Tracy Nunnally for the magic.

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Twenty students from NIU's Art Education program will have a unique opportunity this week to work with teens in a Muscular Dystrophy Association summer camp in Stevenson Towers.

Suesi Metcalf, an instructor in the School of Art, and Leslie Arbetman, the coordinating art education graduate student, are leading art education students in a program that will result in more than seven hours with the MDA campers from July 12 to 16.

"One hundred high school students are coming in, and about 90 of them will be in wheelchairs," Metcalf said. "Our goal is to give them as much control as we can to say, visually, what they want."

Mileage reimbursement increases

Effective July 1, the State of Illinois mileage reimbursement rate for the use of personal vehicles on official NIU business has been increased from 36 cents per mile to 37.5 cents per mile. This applies to travel that takes place on or after July 1. The NIU travel voucher form has been updated to reflect this change.

For more information, call 753-1514.

School of Music hosts
Brown Bag Concert Series

The NIU School of Music Brown Bag Concert series continues at noon Wednesday, July 14, with a harp concert. Other upcoming concerts include the Klaus Luchs senior guitar recital (1 p.m. Saturday, July 17), steel pan concert (noon Wednesday, July 21) and a musical theater review (noon Wednesday, July 28).

The concerts are free and open to the public. Call 753-1551 or 753-1546 for more information.

DAWC presents
gardening series

Heike Hofstetter will present “Environmentally Friendly Gardening” at 7 p.m. Friday, July 16, as part of the continuing “Fridays in 2004” series at the DeKalb Area Women’s Center, 1021 State St.

The program will be of interest to area gardeners wanting to find out more about gardening with native plants, attracting wildlife to the garden, conserving water and energy, and reducing garden waste.

Hofstetter recently completed the University of Illinois Extension Master Gardener Program in DeKalb County, and has a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Tübingen in Germany. She is an adjunct professor in NIU’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Parking is available one-half block south of the building off of the Eleventh Street alley between State and Market streets. The handicapped-accessible lift can be reached from the alley north of the building between State and Pleasant streets.

Call 758-1351 for more information.

Kishwaukee Symphony
hosts golf outing

The Kishwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s sixth annual benefit golf outing is scheduled for Friday, July 16, 2004 at the Sycamore Golf Club, 940 E. State St.

All proceeds raised from this annual event, which also features dinner, a silent auction, raffle prizes and more, benefit the Kishwaukee Symphony Orchestra. For more information, contact Denny Pickett at (815) 758-2777 or via e-mail at DekPickett@niu.edu.

Mortar Board chapter
looking for advisers

The Pleiades chapter of Mortar Board Senior Honor Society at NIU is looking for additional faculty/staff advisers. If you are interested in supporting some of NIU’s most outstanding students or have been involved with Mortar Board in the past, please consider becoming a chapter advisor.

Mortar Board, one of the most prestigious honor societies in the country, recognizes students for outstanding contributions and commitment to the ideals of scholarship, leadership, and service. The Pleiades chapter selects 50 NIU seniors for membership each year.

More information about Mortar Board can be found on the chapter Web site at www.mortarboard.niu.edu or by contacting Dan Turner at danturner@niu.edu or 753-1793.

Old NIU yearbooks sought

Dan Turner, assistant director of Orientation, is working to add to his collection of approximately 30 NIU yearbooks. If you have a past Northern yearbook and are willing to part with it, please contact danturner@niu.edu or 753-1793, or place it in campus mail.

FY04 closing

FY04 cut-off dates

FY04 roll-overs

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