Visual disabilities program sees national potential
in gift from DeKalb Noon Lions Club

A gift of nearly $2,800 from the DeKalb Noon Lions will help to keep Northern Illinois University’s visual disabilities program on top of new technology that benefits people who are blind or visually impaired.

The club’s grant of $2,769 has purchased a Pac-Mate, a compact, portable computer designed for users with visual impairments that should work with most off-the-shelf software made for sighted people.

Marketed by St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Freedom Scientific, the Pac-Mate personal digital assistant (PDA) just was released in January. It presents information in spoken voice as well as in refreshable Braille, using metal pins that pop up from the unit, and has a Braille keyboard.

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NIU graduate student Marisa Saldana plans someday to become a newspaper travel writer, painting colorful pictures in words about the places she visits.

Of the beaches in Australia, where she studied for nine months in 2000 while earning her bachelor’s degree in journalism, she remembers the white sands and the blue waterfalls that twirl and swirl into turquoise pools.

Her stories, if read aloud, will hold special interest for readers who are visually impaired: Saldana herself is totally blind. She lost her vision to glaucoma at age 13.

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The newly renovated NIU Anthropology Museum is marking its reopening with an exhibit of modern paintings and traditional artifacts from the Congo.

Titled “African Dialogues,” the exhibit is open for viewing weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through the end of April at the Anthropology Museum, located in the north wing of the Stevens Building. Visits also can be arranged by appointment by calling 753-0246.

The exhibit focuses on materials from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It features 23 traditional artifacts on loan from NIU faculty members Chris and Kathy Hubbard and eight paintings owned by the museum. Congolese artist André Mavinga, whose works express the effects of the 1964 Stanleyville Massacre, created five of the paintings.

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The Association of Writers & Writing Programs will pay tribute to Lucien Stryk, an internationally acclaimed Zen poet and former NIU English professor, during the group’s annual conference later this month in Chicago.

More than 3,000 writers from all parts of the country are expected to be present at the annual conference and book fair, the largest gathering of its kind. The tribute to Stryk will be held from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Friday, March 26, in the Monroe Ballroom of the Palmer House.

A native of Chicago, Lucien Stryk has written or edited more than two-dozen volumes of poetry, translations and edited collections. His poetry has been translated into Japanese, Chinese, French, Spanish, Swedish and Italian, and he has been the subject of articles in numerous periodicals.

Stryk served on the NIU faculty from 1958 until his retirement in 1991.

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It can be a mean and scary world on the Internet, but Information Technology Services is there to help.

The latest example is a new site license negotiated by the department that makes the protection of the McAfee VirusScan software available for home use by all NIU employees free of charge.

Versions of the software are available for computers running Windows 95 or newer, as well as for Macintosh machines. The license entitles users to free regular updates of virus definitions, but requires users to actively pursue the updates (unlike university computers running McAfee, which are updated automatically),

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Membership in the Northern Star Hall of Fame grew to 38 last month with the induction of six new alums, including the first-ever editor of NIU’s campus newspaper.

Alice Crosby, editor of the Northern Illinois from 1899-1900, stands among a class that includes two hard-hitting columnists, a nationally honored education writer, a devoted high school journalism teacher and a longtime leader from the printing side of the news business.

Crosby’s fellow inductees are Candace Perkins Bowen, Phil Kadner, Phil Luciano, Lori Olszewski and Jerry Smith.

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The NIU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry invites the public to an evening of chemistry demonstrations beginning at 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 17, in Faraday Hall 144.

“We can’t promise anything like the commercials that Guinness has been running recently,” said Michael Spires, coordinator for recruitment and public relations in the department. “But in honor of the season, some of the experiments to be performed this semester will feature either alcohol or the color green.”

Many of the demonstrations will feature color changes, and one planned experiment will produce sparks under water.

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NIU’s annual spring world music concert is scheduled 3 p.m. Sunday, March 21.

The stage of the Boutell Memorial Concert Hall in the Music Building again will fill with the sights and sounds of many cultures from tribal, village, urban and classical genres. It is free of charge, and families with children are welcome.

“We offer an alternative between classical and rock ’n’ roll. This is how other people sound,” said concert founder and organizer Kuo-Huang Han, a Distinguished Teaching Professor in the School of Music.

Han’s first world music concert at NIU, staged in the spring of 1975, was a small affair performed in the recital hall by his students.

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Bookstore to close
for inventory work

University Bookstore will closed for inventory from Monday, March 8, through Wednesday, March 10. Regular store hours resume Thursday, March 11.

College of Law to dedicate
legal skills training center

The College of Law will host an open house from 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday, March 14, for its new Kenneth C. Chessick Legal Skills Training Center.

The center is housed within the College in Swen Parson Hall. A brief program will be presented in the center at 4 p.m. Light refreshments will be served during the open house in the Thurgood Marshall Gallery.

Through a generous contribution by Chessick, a 1984 alum, the center incorporates a high-tech moot courtroom and smart classroom as well as a deposition room. The center will introduce students to today’s technology being used in the courtroom, technology they can expect to use frequently in their future legal careers. -- MORE

Nominations sought for
Deacon Davis Diversity Award

The Presidential Commission on the Status of Minorities (PCSM) at NIU announces the creation of a new award, The Deacon Davis Diversity Award, created to recognize the significant contributions made to the improvement of the status of minorities on campus by members of the university community.

This award is named in honor of Deacon Davis, founder and former director of the CHANCE (College Help & Assistance Necessary for College Education) Program. Davis died March 20, 2003. -- MORE

Phi Beta Kappa
seeks members

NIU’s Phi Beta Kappa Association would like to identify university faculty, staff, and graduate students who were elected to Phi Beta Kappa as undergraduates at any college or university.

If you are not on our local mailing list, please contact Mary Lee Cozad at 753-6448 or send e-mail to mcozad@niu.edu.

The local association will meet from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, March 24, from in the Blackhawk East Dining Room to discuss the association’s direction and to identify this year’s recipient of the annual Hainds Award. -- MORE

AADR spring series
to examine ‘glass ceiling’

In celebration of Women’s Nation History Month, Affirmative Action and Diversity Resources (AADR) will host an informal discussion titled “Through the Looking-Glass Ceiling Factors.”

The session will be held from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday, March 24, in AADR 178. All are welcome to attend and participate in this discussion. Feel free to bring your lunch to the session.

Guest panelists for this session are Kay Forest, chair of the Department of Sociology; Teresa Fisher, associate professor of counseling in the College of Education, and Sylvia Fuentes, director of University Resources for Latinos. -- MORE

NIU Wellness Fair
to teach stroke avoidance

NIU’s Employee Wellness and Assistance Program will host a wellness fair Wednesday, March 24, on the main floor of the Holmes Student Center.

Life Line Screening, a leading provider of quality health screenings, conducts non-invasive and completely painless tests that quickly detect arterial abnormalities which can cause irregular blood flow.

Ninety appointments are available. Pre-registration is required. Call 1-800-407-4557 for registration, or call Karen Smith at 753-9191 for more information.

NIU Theatre stages
‘crime of the century’

Chicago. 1924. The Roaring ’20s. While the rest of the country danced and dawdled and drank gin in speakeasies and sweaty jazz clubs, the city of Chicago spent the summer glued to its newspapers awaiting the outcome of the “crime of the century.”

John Logan’s controversial play “Never the Sinner,” opening Thursday, March 25, at the NIU School of Theatre and Dance, dramatizes the sensational, real-life murder trial that finds at its heart a pair of 19-year-old killers described by the author as “amoral, with scary flashes of true madness.”

"Never the Sinner” runs Thursday, March 25, through Sunday, March 28, and Wednesday, March 31 through Sunday, April 4. Show times are 7:30 p.m. weekdays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. The Players Theatre is located on the second floor of the Stevens Building. Tickets are $14, $8 for seniors and $7 for students. To reserve tickets or for information, call the box office at 753-1600. -- MORE

College of Law to host
law review symposium

The NIU College of Law will host the 13th annual Law Review Symposium from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, March 25, in the Skyroom of the Holmes Student Center. The topic of the symposium is “Emerging Issues in Equal Protection Jurisprudence.” -- MORE

School of Art to host
lecture on Hadrian, Egypt

The NIU School of Art will host a lecture on “Emporor, Pharaoh, or Tourist? Hadrian and Egypt” at 5 p.m. Thursday, April 1, in Room 100 of the Art Building.

Hadrian’s interest in Greece and Greek culture is well-documented. The emperor’s association with Egypt, however, is often overlooked. In her paper, Ashton will consider the Romano-Egyptian sculptural program at Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli and will attempt to determine whether it served a decorative or religious function.

Ashton is a specialist in the art of Ptolemaic, Roman, and Late Antique Egypt. -- MORE

College of Law names
Riley Lecture speaker

Bruce R. Jacob, dean emeritus and professor of law at Stetson University College of Law, will present the 2004 Francis X. Riley Lecture on Professionalism at 2 p.m. Friday, April 2, in the Francis X. Riley Courtroom at the College of Law in DeKalb. Professor Jacob is the 11th speaker for the annual lecture series.

Professor Jacob represented the state of Florida in the 1963 landmark Gideon v. Wainwright case before the United States Supreme Court. Gideon established the right to free legal counsel for indigent defendants. The current Supreme Court term marks the 40th anniversary of this historic decision, -- MORE

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