Aug. 15, 2005, Northern Today Abridged

NIU will help spearhead Antarctic drilling project

The National Science Foundation has awarded a $12.9 million Antarctic research grant to a consortium of five U.S. universities headed by NIU and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The grant supports an ambitious international effort to probe deeper than ever before into geological strata buried beneath the frozen sea to help scientists better understand contemporary global warming trends.

Dubbed ANDRILL, for Antarctic geological drilling, the project will be a focal point during International Polar Year (2007-09), a worldwide campaign of polar education and analyses.

“The Antarctic is like a global thermostat,” explained NIU geologist Ross Powell, who serves as a co-chief scientist for ANDRILL. “The region is showing it can be extremely sensitive to climate change with the massive ice sheet interacting with the world's atmosphere and oceans to help maintain the world's current temperature distribution. When global temperatures warm past critical thresholds, the ice sheet melts, accelerating the warming effect. When global temperatures cool, the ice sheet expands, accelerating the cooling effect.”

The NSF grant, to be dispersed over five years, will be administered by the ANDRILL Science Management Office, headquartered at UNL. In all, ANDRILL is backed by more than $30 million in funding, including $9.7 million in previous and ongoing national agreements to support operations and nearly $8 million from the other countries to support scientific research.

In addition to NIU and UNL, other U.S. universities making up the American half of the ANDRILL program are Florida State University in Tallahassee, Ohio State University in Columbus and the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. The international half will include scientists from New Zealand, Italy and Germany.

In October and November of 2006 and 2007, ANDRILL scientists will use a powerful new drilling system partially owned by UNL and NIU to recover rock cores from the seabed in the McMurdo Sound area of the Ross Sea, using floating ice as a drilling platform. By studying the cores, scientists in Antarctica and around the world will be able to develop a detailed history of the Antarctic climate and the expansion and contraction of the area's ice sheets over the past 20 million years.

“The core samples that we retrieve will provide a layered sedimentary record that scientists can read like a history book to infer past glacial and climatic changes, because the samples contain fossils and sediment left behind during repeated advances and retreats of the ice sheet,” Powell said. “While our focus is the past 20 million years, eventually we hope this program may be able to tap into a geological record of time as far back as 50 to 60 million years – when few, if any, glaciers existed and the planet had just experienced the age of dinosaurs.”

“A team of 100 international scientists will work to establish how fast, how frequent, and how large were the past changes in the Antarctic ice sheet,” added UNL micropaleontologist David Harwood, director of the ANDRILL Science Management Office and co-chief scientist with Powell. “The past will reveal much about the future and Antarctica 's role in the global climate machine, which affects all of us.”

ANDRILL's Science Management Office opened at UNL in 2002, soon after the completion of its predecessor, the Cape Roberts Project (1995-2000), in the western Ross Sea region. Also in 2002, Harwood and Powell secured a $1 million Major Research Initiative grant from NSF to help build the drilling system, which is nearing completion in Christchurch, New Zealand. It will be tested there this fall.

ANDRILL will award sub-grants to some 40 scientists, or 20 in each of the two drilling seasons. Half will work in Antarctica and the other half will work in laboratories at their home institutions. Powell said it is “highly likely” that other NIU scientists and students will be involved in the project. Geology's Reed Scherer is already on the scientific steering committee for the U.S. ANDRILL program.

The program will proceed in three stages. Seismic surveys to determine the best drilling sites will be completed in October and November.

In 2006, a team led by Powell and Tim Naish of the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences in New Zealand will drill from the McMurdo Ice Shelf south of Ross Island. In the second drilling season, a team led by Harwood and Fabio Florindo of Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology will drill from a site west of Ross Island.

Scientists selected the McMurdo Sound region for the project because the area provides access to a full range of geologic activity. ANDRILL's drilling system, developed and operated by Antarctica New Zealand (the project operator for ANDRILL), is designed to punch through about 275 meters of ice, drop through 900 meters of water to the sea floor and pull a continuous 1,000-meter-long sediment core at each drilling site.

The core samples first will be examined by scientists at McMurdo Station and then stored at Florida State University's Antarctic Research Facility, where they will be available for study.

NIU receives $8.32 million in new federal transportation bill

The $286.5 billion transportation bill signed into law by President Bush last week in Aurora includes $8.32 million to plan, design and build new roads on the west side of campus.

“We are very grateful to Speaker of the House Denny Hastert, and his staff, for their assistance in securing this funding,” NIU President John Peters said. “At a time when there is little or no money available from the state to help us plan and build for the needs of the future, this is most welcome.”

The money will be used specifically to design and build a road network and the accompanying infrastructure improvements – water lines and sewers, for example – that will allow the university to begin development of about 230 acres at the western edge of campus.

That land was purchased by the NIU Board of Trustees in 1997. Plans are to develop it for a variety of uses including expanded research capabilities and student life improvements. No specific plans have yet been made, and no construction is imminent.

“Thanks to these funds, we can now begin the formal planning process for the long-term development of this land,” Peters said. “Before any buildings can be built, infrastructure and roads need to be engineered, designed and built. These funds are essential to those efforts.”

The university will begin working at once with the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Illinois Department of Transportation to set the work in motion. The process will take place over an extended period of time, with the money allocated in the bill slated to be drawn down over a four-year period.

New Huskie Band director ready to 'take the field'

Tom Bough is not an NIU alum, but his on-campus interview for the Huskie Band director's job was a Homecoming of sorts.

As a member of the Rockford-based Phantom Regiment Drum & Bugle Corps in 1986 and 1987, the teenager from southwest Missouri and his contrabass horn took the field in competition inside Huskie Stadium.

“During the interview, they walked me onto the field. I looked up at the stands and, man, for a second, I was 18 again, with the hair and everything,” said Bough, the man NIU expects to continue and build on the Huskie Band's century-long tradition of excellence.

“Intercollegiate Athletics is very excited that Tom has joined the Huskie family as the director of athletic bands,” NIU Athletics Director Jim Phillips said. “We're very much looking forward to continuing the close relationship Athletics enjoys with the band program as it is a focal point for Intercollegiate Athletics.”

“Tom Bough brings a good mix of experience, enthusiasm and enterprise,” said Paul Bauer, director of the NIU School of Music, “in addition to his high level of musicianship and established record of research and artistry that should serve NIU well.”

Bough comes to DeKalb after six years in Carbondale, where he directed the athletic bands and taught tuba and euphonium at Southern Illinois University.

Membership in SIU's marching band nearly tripled under his leadership, an accomplishment already in progress here. NIU's ranks for this fall have grown 60 percent to about 170 – Bough credits a springtime meeting with the band's student leaders – and could climb to 200 with last-minute recruiting over the next couple weeks.

He's already raised the band's presence by sending Huskie Band members to every summer orientation session “just to shake hands and generate excitement,” and will take the whole band to Thursday's Huskie Bash.

Both activities are virgin territory for the Huskie Band and things Bough was able to make happen through the care of Bauer, who provided a laptop, an NIU e-mail account and an NIU phone number, and staff in Athletics and Student Housing and Dining Services.

He also has recruited two former Huskie Band leaders to lend a hand, and is making plans for “a big alumni band” to perform in 2006.

“People are just rolling out the red carpet for us,” Bough said. “I'm overwhelmed by the support and encouragement.”

Bough earned his graduate degrees from Arizona State University and his undergraduate degree from Southwest Missouri State University. His experience as a conductor includes athletic bands, concert bands and brass bands at the university or professional level.

A former member of the Walt Disney World All-American College Band, his research and artistry interests include articles on conducting, low brass pedagogy and music education as well as wind literature analysis and guest conducting.

His first band camp in Huskie country began Saturday, with leadership training for chosen students, and continued Sunday as younger students were granted early access to residence halls.

Some already have provided ideas about the season's shows, music for which is currently playing on Top 40 radio and being arranged by “some of the best people in the country.” Bough wants to make sure NIU students and other young fans of the Huskies hear songs they know and enjoy.

“Student input is critical,” he said. “It's an incredible opportunity to work with students of this caliber. Their commitment is inspiring.”

Bough and his wife, Erica, a professional trumpeter, live in Aurora with Stephen, their 19-month-old son. They are expecting a daughter in October.

Kudos

Geology's Loubere leads conference on global climate change

Paul Loubere, a professor in the NIU Department of Geology and Environmental Geosciences, served as a principal organizer for an international conference on global climate change, held in late July in Woods Hole, Mass.

The conference attracted leading scientists from the United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, Mexico and numerous European countries.

“We met to take stock of our current understanding of the mechanisms by which marine life cycles carbon into the ocean, and the response of these mechanisms to global climate change,” Loubere said.

“The conference demonstrated that sophisticated climate-system models can recreate the carbon-cycle patterns we observe in nature,” he added. “Clearly, we are making headway in understanding the larger carbon-climate picture. At the same time, the information presented showed that our understanding of the exact mechanics of the marine biotic and chemical processes still elude us. We remain uncertain about the way the oceanic system will respond to climate change and to the climate warming caused by humans.”

NIU was well represented at the conference at multiple levels. Presentations were made by NIU alumnus Figen Mekik (Ph.D. in geology, 1999), current Ph.D. student Mathieu Richaud and undergraduate student Jonathan Warnock. Warnock was supported by an NIU USOAR grant for his research and conference presentation.

The conference was held under the auspices of the American Geophysical Union Chapman Conference Program and funded by the National Science Foundation, the Woods Hole Oceanographic and Climate Change Institute, and the Analytical Center for Climate and Environmental Change at NIU.

NIU's Turner voted vice president of Mortar Board national council

Daniel Turner, acting associate director for NIU's Academic Advising Center , was named vice president of the National Council for the Mortar Board National College Senior Honor Society at the 2005 National Conference.

Nearly 300 Mortar Board members from across the United States convened July 22 to 24 in Columbus, Ohio, for the annual conference to participate in leadership workshops and hold elections for the national leadership.

Mortar Board is a national honor society that recognizes college seniors for outstanding achievement in scholarship, leadership and service. Since its founding in 1918, the organization has grown from the four founding chapters to 213 chapters and more than 240,000 initiated members across the nation.

Initiated at NIU in 1994, Turner served as president of NIU's chapter and was selected as a student adviser to the 1995 National Conference. He has received Mortar Board's distinguished Ruth Mount Fellowship in 2002 and was recognized with an Excellence in Advising Award in 2003.

Turner earned a bachelor's degree in psychology in 1995 and a master's in instructional technology in 1998. He plans to complete a doctorate program in higher education administration at Loyola University Chicago in 2008.

Turner served as assistant director for orientation and technology before accepting a promotion to acting associate director for the NIU's Academic Advising Center in 2005. In addition, Turner has been teaching a first-year seminar course at NIU for 10 years.

Law Library announces hours for August, fall semester

The David C. Shapiro Memorial Law Library has announced its hours for August and the fall semester.

The library is open from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 20, and from 2 to 10 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 21.

Fall hours begin Monday, Aug. 22. The library is open from 7:15 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, from 7:15 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturdays and from noon to 11:30 p.m. Sundays.

Exceptions include Labor Day weekend (from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 3, from 2 to 8 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 4, and from 2 to 10 p.m. Monday, Sept. 5.) and the Thanksgiving recess (open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 23, from noon to 11:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 27, and closed in between).

The extended scheduled for final exams week begins Saturday, Dec. 3.

Call (815) 753-0505 for more information.

Comedian 'Tater Salad' to visit Convocation Center Sept. 30

“Blue Collar” comedian Ron White, better known as "Tater Salad," will come to DeKalb at 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 30, for an appearance at the Convocation Center.

Tickets are $40.25 for the general public and $35.25 for NIU students (limit two). Additional fees and charges may apply. Tickets are available at the Convocation Center box office, all Ticketmaster outlets, via www.ticketmaster.com or by phone at (312) 559-1212.

For more information, call (815) 752-6800 or visit www.niuconvo.com.

8-15-05