May 17, 2004, Northern Today Abridged

NIU must reduce FY04 expenditures by $2 million

NIU President John Peters released the following statement last week in response to word from Springfield ordering a late rescission in state university budgets.

Dear Colleagues:

Late yesterday we received word from the governor’s Office of Management and Budget that all public universities are required to return two percent of our entire FY04 general revenue base appropriation by June 30, 2004.

Collectively, that order will cost Illinois higher education more than $40 million. At NIU, this late-stage rescission means that we must reduce FY04 expenditures over $2 million within six weeks.

As you can imagine, I am currently in lengthy discussions with other Illinois public university presidents. We continue to work on a coordinated strategy that informs Illinois’ policy makers of the danger of these cumulative budget reductions to the long-term quality of Illinois’ public universities.

After receipt of this information, I gathered the senior cabinet and senior budget administrators together for a meeting to best determine how to meet this $2 million obligation with just six weeks remaining in the fiscal year. The emergency budget measures which emerged from those meetings were implemented yesterday and will continue to remain in place until we resolve this problem. I anticipate that we will be able to relax these budget measures by May 31, 2004.

The emergency budget measures range from reviewing unobligated year-end funds in department budgets across campus, to a temporary hiring freeze, to putting equipment and contract payments on hold. However, I want to reiterate that summer session will proceed as planned and is exempted from these measures.

I have asked division heads to submit impact statements to their appropriate vice presidents detailing the effect of this late-stage 2% rescission.

While I had hoped that such measures would not be necessary, the last-minute nature of this rescission left me no choice. To the extent possible, I request that everyone continue to honor the budget crisis principles I set forth two years ago: protection at all costs of the student academic experience; avoidance of layoffs; avoidance of salary cuts; and a continued commitment to protection of health and safety.

I will share new information as it becomes available. In the meantime, your understanding in implementing these necessary budget measures is deeply appreciated.

Sincerely,

John G. Peters
President

History’s David Kyvig wins Wilson Center fellowship

NIU History Professor David Kyvig has won a fellowship to the prestigious Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., where he will spend the coming academic year conducting research for a book on the modern history of impeachment.

Kyvig is one of only 23 scholars from the United States, Austria, India, New Zealand and Russia named as Wilson Center fellows for 2004-05. He also is receiving a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies.

Kyvig, an NIU Presidential Research Professor who specializes in 20th century U.S. history and the Constitution, will examine what he calls “the age of impeachment,” from 1960 to the present day. He plans to produce a book on the topic.

The U.S. Constitution provides a vehicle for removal of a public official through the process of impeachment in cases of “treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.” The House of Representatives initiates impeachment; the accused is then tried before the Senate, with the chief justice of the Supreme Court presiding over the trial.

“The impeachment device was very infrequently used in the first century and three quarters of American history,” Kyvig says. “In recent decades, it has become much more frequently employed. I’m interested in why that happened.”

The decade of the 1960s saw three impeachment efforts against Supreme Court justices. In 1974, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee recommended the impeachment of President Nixon, who resigned shortly thereafter. During the 1980s, multiple impeachment efforts were brought against federal judges, while President Reagan was threatened with impeachment over the Iran-Contra affair. In 1998, Bill Clinton became only the second U.S. president ever impeached by Congress. (Neither Clinton nor Andrew Johnson in 1868 was convicted of a crime.)

In 1951, the 22nd Constitutional Amendment was adopted, imposing a two-term limit on the presidency. Since then, three out of four second-term presidents (Nixon, Reagan and Clinton) have confronted impeachment, Kyvig notes. Only Dwight Eisenhower escaped this fate.

“We’re starting to see this notion of impeachment as an ordinary part of the U.S. political culture,” Kyvig says. “We’ve already seen several calls for the impeachment of George W. Bush, most notably by Ralph Nader this past year. The notion of impeachment as a political device has certainly started to take on a life that it simply didn’t have during most of our national political history.”

The framers of the Constitution likely intended the process of impeachment to be a method of last resort, Kyvig adds. “It wasn’t an ordinary device for restraining an office holder,” he says.

NIU mourns former nursing chair Ann M. Hart

Ann M. Hart, the first faculty member of the Northern Illinois University School of Nursing and its longtime chair, died Saturday, May 8, in DeKalb. She was 79.

Hart, a school nurse in DeKalb and far-downstate Benton for most of the 1950s, joined the fledgling NIU School of Nursing in 1959. Regarded by some as a visionary with a keen sense of where her profession was heading, she ascended through the school’s ranks and became chair in 1978, a position she held until her retirement in the spring of 1990.

A visitation will take place at a later date at Anderson Funeral Home, 2011 S. Fourth St. in DeKalb.

Two memorial funds also have been established. In lieu of flowers, well-wishers can make contributions to the Ann M. Hart Memorial Fund either at Northern Public Radio or DeKalb County Hospice.

“She was a great leader of the nursing program and was instrumental in upgrading the program throughout the time she was department chair,” said John E. La Tourette, who retired as NIU’s president four years ago. “She was a wonderful person and very caring, reflecting not only her basic instincts but her professional training as a nurse.”

During her 12 years in the school’s top post, Hart oversaw its move from an on-campus building shared with the biology department (Montgomery Hall) to its own quarters a few blocks north of campus. Hart also worked diligently to attract more nurses to the profession and, in 1980, introduced a program that allowed registered nurses in the Rockford area to earn NIU bachelor’s degrees by taking some courses at Rock Valley College.

La Tourette, who said he “loved to work with her,” remembers Hart as a “strong advocate for nursing” who also made sure the university took care of her colleagues and students.

“She was a very tough negotiator to guarantee the university provided enough support for the program,” he said. “She made sure when we moved the program to a new location it would have the facilities for a first-class operation. I knew she would do that, and she didn’t disappoint me.”

“When Ann M. Hart talked, the university listened,” echoed Ada Hetland, her longtime secretary and now the school’s administrative secretary. “Everybody said she did not want to move to this building, but that is not true. She wanted to make sure the staff, the faculty and the students had the same services here as we did over there in Montgomery. That’s why she put up the fight. She was an advocate for students, faculty and staff. She was very strong about that.”

Born April 25, 1925, in Orient, Ill., Hart earned a diploma from the St. John’s School of Nursing in 1950. She completed her bachelor’s degree at Southern Illinois University in 1954, her master’s degree at the University of Michigan in 1955 and her Ed.D. at Indiana University in 1962.

She was a member of the National League for Nursing, the American Nurses Association, the American Association of University Professors, Pi Lambda Theta and the National Education Association. She also served on the first editorial board for “The Nursing Spectrum,” which launched publication in January of 1988.

In 1990, as she prepared to retire, she named as her proudest achievement the reputation of NIU’s nursing program across Illinois and gave credit to her faculty colleagues and the hundreds of nursing graduates the school produced.

Hetland, hired by Hart in 1975, remembers her “calm” ways, her clear understanding of the intricacies of state budgets and her love of attending operas and ballets in Chicago.

“We always said that Dr. Hart moved like a sailing ship: no waves. She was calm. She was wonderful,” Hetland said. “She had a vision for nursing that was ahead of her time. She anticipated where nursing was going to go in the future – community nursing – and that’s what she pushed for.”

Retired NIU librarian endows arts scholarships

Lester Smith traces his interest in art and music to his elementary school days, when he loved to draw and listen to music at school assemblies.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in art (studio arts and interior decoration) from California State University-San Diego in 1949. He worked as an interior decorator in his native San Diego.

Life changed, however, when he was drafted into the Army during the Korean war.

Smith spent nine months after his two-year hitch in a military hospital recovering from tuberculosis contracted in Korea. Upon leaving the hospital, and with Montgomery G.I. Bill money in his pocket for furthering his education, he chose to seek a master’s degree in library science.

With regard to art, “I think of myself more as a connoisseur than a practitioner,” says Smith in his tranquil DeKalb home, where he is surrounded by pottery, glassware, wood, sculptures and paintings, some created by his friends: “I finally had to draw a line in collecting, however, because I didn’t have any more room.”

Smith will continue to support artists – and musicians – in the coming years and decades nonetheless by endowing scholarships for students in the NIU School of Art and the NIU School of Music, both in the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

His significant gift creates two funds – “The Lester K. Smith Endowed Creative Art Scholarship” and “The Lester K. Smith Creative Music Scholarship” – that will benefit advanced undergraduate and graduate students in art and music. Each fund will award two scholarships annually.

Others are welcome to contribute to the endowments. More information is available through the NIU Foundation, 204 Lowden Hall or (815) 753-0782.

“I have been so fortunate to have received help myself. I am where I am today because of the federal government’s programs. All of my graduate education was paid for,” says Smith, who completed his master’s (1957) and Title II-funded Ph.D. (1972) at the University of Southern California. “I wanted to give something back, and the best way was to fund scholarships. I don’t think the humanities get as much (financial) support.”

Smith came to NIU in 1973 as associate director of Founders Memorial Library, initially tackling administrative duties as a liaison between the university and the architects designing the new facility.

After his retirement in 1989, he began volunteering as a literacy tutor for adults through Kishwaukee Community College, stopping after a decade only because arthritis began to hamper his mobility.

As a self-proclaimed connoisseur of the fine arts – “I have a keen interest in classical music. I took two stabs at learning how to play the piano, but I never had the discipline to practice enough. A friend acted as a mentor for my listening to classical music, and introduced me to composers I wasn’t familiar with,” he says – Smith has one wish for the students who benefit from his estate.

“Creativity,” he says. “I want them to get the most out of their experiences here.”

UPs take Segways for a test spin

University Police recently concluded a two-week test of the Segway Human Transporter, evaluating its potential use for patrolling campus.

The two-wheeled electric scooter burst onto the national consciousness in December 2001, when it was unveiled as the next big technological innovation in human transportation.

While the landscape was not immediately cluttered with the vehicles, they quietly have been building a following and are popping up in a number of unique niches, including factories, theme parks and airports.

The vehicles also are being tested and considered by a number of police departments, now including NIU’s.

With dimensions no larger than the average adult body and the ability to emulate human balance, the Segway HT uses the same space as a pedestrian and can go in most places a person can walk. The Segway HT will allow police officers to go farther, move more quickly and increase the amount they can carry anywhere they currently walk. It also enables officers to conserve energy and arrive on a scene to manage an emergency more easily.

During the first two weeks of May, NIU police used the vehicle for traffic control, general patrol and transportation across campus.

The reviews were very positive.

“They really liked it, and thought it would be an interesting addition,” said Lt. Matt Kiederlen of the University Police, adding that he can envision ways that the transporter could fit into the department’s patrol mix, complementing existing foot, bike and car patrols.

While it likely wouldn’t replace any of those, the device does offer some advantages over each.

“It can go anywhere a bike can go, but it can also go in buildings, even elevators, which is an improvement,” Kiederlen said. “Because it can use sidewalks or cut across the grass, it can get places a car can’t. It would also allow officers to easily transport emergency medical equipment – which weights about 70 pounds – to the scene of an emergency and not be exhausted when they arrive. I can see it being very useful.”

The price tag for a patrol-ready version of the Segway HT would be about $9,000. There are no immediate plans to purchase any of the devices.

Heating Plant announces annual steam outages

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: Began Sunday and continues through noon Friday, May 21. This will include Neptune and all buildings west of Carroll Avenue, except Stevenson and various smaller buildings not served by steam. Domestic and heating hot water will not be available.

East Campus: Beginning at 10 a.m. Thursday, May 27, through noon Friday, June 4. This will include all buildings east of Carroll Avenue, except for various smaller buildings not served by steam. Domestic and heating hot water will not be available.

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

Art Attack festival committee to meet

Do you like to paint? Do you play an instrument? Do you do ceramics? Are you asking what do those have in common?

All that and more will take place Sept. 18 at Sycamore’s “Paint the Pavement” festival. The Art Attack School of Art will team up with the Annual Downtown Sycamore’s Block Party to create an exciting outdoor art festival.

The next organizing meeting for this event is at 6:30 p.m. today at the Art Attack of Sycamore, located at 215 W. Elm Street. Come and bring your input to make this a great art day. Call Susan Edwards, executive director of the Art Attack, at (815) 899-9440 to register or get more information, or visit the Art Attack Web page at www.sycamoreartattack.com.

NIU College of Law announces Topinka as ceremony speaker

The NIU College of Law has announced Illinois State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka as this year’s commencement speaker. Commencement will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 22, in the NIU Convocation Center.

Topinka was elected Nov. 8, 1994, becoming the first woman in Illinois history to hold the post. She also became the first Republican elected state treasurer in 32 years. Topinka made history again in November 1998, as she won a second term as state treasurer and became the first woman re-elected to a statewide office. Winning re-election to a third term in 2002, Topinka became the first state treasurer to win three consecutive terms.

There are 99 candidates for the NIU College of Law JD degree.

Law library announces hours for summer

The David C. Shapiro Memorial Law Library has announced its summer hours from June 1 through Aug. 20.

Hours are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays and 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays. The library is closed Saturdays.

The library also is closed on the Fourth of July and Monday, July 5.

Call 753-0505 for more information.

NIU to co-sponsor summer reading conference

NIU and the Northern Illinois Reading Council once again will offer a summer reading conference: Effective Reading and Writing Instruction will take place from June 8 through June 11 at Waubonsee Community College in Sugar Grove.

Featured conference speakers include Jill Cole of Wesley College, Delaware; Megan McDonald, noted children’s author of the “Judy Moody” series; Maria Walther of Indian Prairie School District, and Dorothy Leal of Ohio University.

Graduate course credit is available through NIU upon completion.

Contact the NIU College of Education Office of External Programs at 753-6594 or 753-3005 or by e-mail at jklcok@niu.edu or jcrotchett@niu.edu for registration materials. Registration forms also are available online at www.cedu.niu.edu/oep.

5-17-04