August 29, 2005, Northern Today Abridged

CEET, Accountancy rankings shine in U.S. News

The NIU College of Engineering and Engineering Technology and the NIU Department of Accountancy continue to rise in the estimation of their peers across the country.

In the latest U.S. News and World Report college rankings, CEET was ranked 32nd in the nation among engineering programs whose highest degree offered is a bachelor's or master's degree, tying several other programs for that distinction.

In the NIU College of Business, Accountancy retained its ranking as the 25th best accounting program in the nation, the third straight year it has made the top 25.

CEET's ranking has improved steadily over the last three years, from 49th in 2003 to 39th last year and 32nd this year.

The improvement in national rankings is indicative of the trend at the college in general.

During a recent five-year period, the college saw an increase in enrollment of 45 percent, with a corresponding improvement in the quality of applicants. The college also has seen an increase in financial support and gifts-in-kind from corporate donors, including a recent gift of engineering software from UGS worth more than $8 million.

The college also has experienced a dramatic increase in federal funding in recent years, most notably nearly $6 million to establish the ROCK (Rapid Optimization of Commercial Knowledge) program in Rockford. The effort is aimed at helping companies in Rockford to understand their strengths and capacities and to become contributors toward the development of a new generation of lighter, faster and stronger fighting vehicles for the U.S. military.

The college also is participating in the federally funded EIGER lab in Rockford , which is working to develop and commercialize micromachining processes, and last year received nearly $1 million in federal funding to work with researchers at Argonne National Laboratory on the development of fuel cells.

In addition to those efforts, CEET recently announced that it has joined forces with the Falex Corp. to create the Center for Tribology and Coatings, which will be funded in part by a Department of Defense grant.

The partnership, hopes Dean Promod Vohra, is the first of many such research pairings with private corporations that will expand research opportunities for faculty and learning and employment opportunities for students.

“The time has come for CEET to become a more mature college, one that stresses excellence not only in teaching, but in research as well. It is time for us to attain regional prominence and national recognition,” Vohra says. “Efforts like these are moving us closer to that goal, and the improving rankings in publications like U.S. News and World Report demonstrate our success.”

Chair of Accountancy Greg Carnes is equally excited about the showing of his department.

“The fact that we have secured this ranking three years in a row indicates that there is an awareness among our peers that we are program of consistent quality, and that is very satisfying,” Carnes said.

Making that consistency all the more impressive, he said, is that this spate of national recognition has come at a time when the department was forced to revamp its curriculum to keep up with changing industry standards while simultaneously experiencing a significant turnover in staffing as faculty retire. Four longtime members of the department retired between May 2004 and June 2005.

“Consistent rankings like these are a tribute not just to the strength of the faculty that brought this program to prominence,” Carnes said, “but also a testament to the quality of new faculty we have brought on board.”

The accountancy program also continues to draw high marks from accounting professors around the country, who last year ranked the undergraduate program 10th and the graduate program 12th, continuing streaks of high rankings that extend back more than a decade.

NIU partners in state program to recruit bilingual teachers

Friends and colleagues of Jack Fields are lucky he has a cell phone.

His number at work – Fields is the coordinator of the Transition to Teaching Program for the Illinois Resource Center – is perpetually busy. As of last Tuesday, nearly 800 people had registered their interest in a federally funded initiative to recruit and train bilingual teachers, and Fields must call them all back.

NIU is a partner with the Illinois State Board of Education, the Chicago Public Schools and the Illinois Resource Center in the grant, which begins next month with a cohort of 30. Students will need two-and-a-half years to complete the rigorous curriculum, and new cohorts will start each semester through the fall of 2007.

“We're going to come up with a high level of quality in these candidates,” Fields said. “A lot of the process right now is getting out the information and answering questions.”

The Title II grant, part of No Child Left Behind, addresses the critical shortage of bilingual teachers in Illinois by identifying and assisting candidates from other fields who wish to change careers and become bilingual teachers.

Participants must be fluent in English and another language targeted by the state – the list includes Arabic, Cantonese, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Lao, Mandarin, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Urdu and Vietnamese – and must already have a bachelor's degree in any subject.

In Illinois, only the Chicago Public Schools meets the federal requirements for high need. The state's largest school district is home to 57,000 students for whom English is not their native tongue.

“NIU clearly has a very real, very compelling interest in this program,” said Vice Provost Earl “Gip” Seaver, who represented NIU at an Aug. 9 press conference in Chicago. “The greater Chicagoland region served by NIU is among the fastest-growing regions in the country. Latinos represent the fastest-growing ethnic group in the region. And, among Latinos, the fastest-growing subset is made up of non-English-speaking residents.”

“The sheer growth in the number of second-language learners in the state of Illinois makes it imperative we have individuals teaching in the classrooms who are bilingual. This is particularly true in Chicago, but true also in school districts such as Cicero, West Chicago, East Aurora, Waukegan and Elgin,” said Norm Stahl, chair of College of Education 's Department of Literacy Education.

“Positive role models are important,” Stahl added. “Kids need to be able to communicate with someone who speaks their own language and has an understanding of the culture the kids bring to the classroom.”

The Illinois Transition to Teaching initiative hopes to recruit around 250 participants over the next five years. It provides financial support for the completion of a master's degree and standard certification in elementary education along with bilingual and English as a Second Language teaching approvals.

All participants will work as bilingual teachers in the Chicago Public Schools while completing the required coursework, and then employed afterward within the district.

NIU already has trained nearly 200 bilingual teachers from across the service region in recent years, including more than 100 who graduated in May. More than 300 new bilingual and ESL teachers are currently in the NIU pipeline.

“Readiness for college is highly dependent on having teachers who are well-prepared and can make sure that high school graduates are ready for a smooth transition to higher education,” Seaver said. “Issues as important as bilingual education deserve the best efforts of many partners, and we're proud to be involved.”

“Northern has been the most flexible and the most supportive and cooperating in terms of trying to develop a program that will meet the needs of school districts and potential candidates,” Fields said. “You have a terrific group of people out there in terms of willingness to work hard and be creative.”

Robin Lisboa, division administrator for English Language Learning at the Illinois State Board of Education, said the NIU master's degree for bilingual teachers is solid.

“Some programs out there are alternative programs that look at condensing some of the process. With Northern, it's an alternate route, meaning they're not cutting any corners,” said Lisboa, an NIU alumna who earned her M.S.Ed. in elementary education in 2000.

“We're looking at a pedagogically sound curriculum. You're going to take the same courses anyone would take in an on-campus program. The difference is that Northern is able to deliver the coursework close to the community where the recipients are,” Lisboa added. “Being a product of the system – looking at it from a student's perspective and now an administrator's perspective – I believe in the soundness of the instruction.”

NIU will lead international collaboration
in building virtual library on Southeast Asia

The U.S. Department of Education is awarding a grant of $780,000 over four years to NIU Libraries, which will lead a consortium of institutions from across the world in the creation of an Internet-based digital library on Southeast Asia.

“By far, this is the largest grant we've ever received,” said University Libraries Dean Arthur Young. “We're proud to be heading up this collaborative effort. In many ways it's a natural fit for NIU, with our acclaimed Center for Southeast Asian Studies and the library's vast resources, which include a world-class Southeast Asian collection and a unit that specializes in digitization of materials for the Web.”

The Southeast Asia Digital Library is expected to debut online as a project in development early next year. It will give researchers, students and the general public free access to unique and rare materials related to Southeast Asian history, scholarship and contemporary culture.

The virtual library will focus on the countries of Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

“The initial goal of the project is to collect information from Southeast Asia that would otherwise be difficult for most researchers and students to access,” said Gregory Green, project co-director and curator of NIU Libraries' Southeast Asian Collection.

“Digitizing the materials provides worldwide access, promoting research and understanding,” he added. “Rather than travel the globe in search of these rare materials, researchers will be able to simply log onto the Internet.”

The virtual library's resources will include:

• Rare early-printed works in the languages of the region.
• Historical photographs covering a century of life in Cambodia. The archive is being developed by NIU anthropologist Judy Ledgerwood and NIU political scientist Kheang Un.
• A video archive of a currently influential television news program in Indonesia.
• A video archive, known as the Living Memory Project, with interviews of former political prisoners in East Timor.
• Digitized images of rare and fragile palm-leaf manuscripts from northeastern Thailand. Palm leaves were used for centuries throughout much of Southeast Asia as a writing material to record Buddhist scriptures, law and literature.

Dwight King, director of the NIU Center for Southeast Asian Studies, said the new virtual library will be a valuable resource at a time when the study of the region is critically important.

“Southeast Asia is becoming a major player on the world's stage,” King said. “ Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim-majority country. A Thai representative is the current secretary-general of the World Trade Organization. The Philippines and Thailand have contributed forces to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq . Also, for several decades, the rates of economic growth, industrialization, urbanization and globalization in Southeast Asia have outpaced those of other parts of the world.”

Top U.S. centers on the study of Southeast Asia will provide support for the Southeast Asia Digital Library.

Participating institutions include the University of California at Berkeley, UCLA, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Michigan, Cornell University, Harvard University and Yale University. Additionally, the project will rely on international partners, including the Philippines University of San Carlos and Thailand's Khon Kaen University and Thammasat University.

“Eventually this project will bring together and build upon resources from many existing projects at NIU and other institutions,” Green said. “We want the Southeast Asia Digital Library to be a central access point to as many Southeast Asian resources as possible.”

The grant is being distributed through the DOE's Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access Program. It supports projects that use innovative electronic technologies to collect information from foreign sources.

Online digitization projects reach audiences inside and outside of academe. In its simplest terms, the digitization process requires scanning or photographing artifacts and research documents. Special software is used to put text into searchable word-processing files and to catalogue materials, which are then loaded into databases on the Web site.

NIU Libraries digitization unit, headed by Drew VandeCreek, has an impressive resume of digitization projects that have attracted $2.3 million in external funding over the last 7½ years (including the most recent DOE grant).

“Most of our digitization projects involve partners from other institutions, but this will be our largest and first international collaboration,” said VandeCreek, who will serve as co-director of the Southeast Asia Digital Library project. “We also expect that, in terms of video provided for the Web, this could be the largest-scale project we've ever been involved in.”

NIU literacy professor works to close gap
in reading achievement for African-American adolescent males

As a young teen in the Chicago Public Schools, growing up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood a few yards from a federal housing project, Alfred Tatum became one of the fortunate ones.

He was blessed with empowering teachers who understood his surroundings. They cared about his life and not only his test scores. They encouraged him to read Dick Gregory's “Nigger” and “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.”

Such passion for teaching – “Harvard dreams for kids living in hellish conditions,” Tatum says – made a difference: Tatum is now an NIU professor of literacy education with a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction.

Yet his good fortune “is part of the problem,” Tatum says. “Children should not be fortunate to have quality teachers. We're not playing the lottery with lives.”

Tatum's book, “Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males: Closing the Achievement Gap,” released in May by Portland, Maine-based Stenhouse Publishers, is earning great attention among U.S. educators and netting several speaking engagements for the busy author.

Meanwhile, the mounting weight of the federal No Child Left Behind law and its focus on test scores is fueling Tatum's insistence that a successful school experience involves more than good grades.

“My phones have been lighting up since this book came out,” says Tatum, who also is an NIU alum. “Teachers want to know how to address these issues, but they feel handicapped by limited experience … or they feel powerless because they attribute it to factors they cannot control, such as parental involvement or poverty. They shift the responsibility.”

Tatum already has spoken to school teachers and administrators in Michigan , New York , New Jersey and Ohio .

In his home state, he has visited his alma mater Chicago Public Schools, where he began his career teaching eighth-grade for five years on the city's South Side. He also accepted an invitation to speak from the suburban Oswego school district, where “the other students” are succeeding.

He also has written a two-part article for Middle Level News, published by the California League of Middle Schools.

“It's a point of urgency. We cannot continue to stay the course we have been on for African-American adolescent males,” he said. “We need to rally people around the complexity of addressing the literacy needs, not only of African-American adolescent males, but of all students in the face of national legislation.”

Tatum's concerns are many.

No clear strategy has emerged for addressing the needs of African-American adolescent males, including the lack of a clear definition for the role of reading in their education.

Policy makers and educators focus more on instructional strategies and ignore other issues that affect learning, such as poverty or the cultural disconnect of the classroom.

Such a lapse makes for an “anatomically incomplete” body of teaching, he says, missing the head (the theoretical) and the legs (the professional development).

Many African-American adolescent males also experience an “out-of-school literacy overload and an in-school literacy under-load,” he says. They live amidst race- and class-based “turmoil” before and after school while their teachers fail to provide the texts that could “serve as road maps” to better life outcomes.

As a result, Tatum posits, the disengagement of these young minds and their disproportionate (and often inappropriate) referrals to special education services lead to their 50-percent high school dropout rate in some of the nation's largest urban school districts.

Their resistance to reading anything – whether to satisfy academic, culture, social or emotional needs – rises as they are assigned texts “that inadvertently contribute to their diminished status in schools and society.”

Rather, Tatum says, teachers should encourage interest in school through reading assignments that reflect their own situation and provide them hope to rise above their circumstances. “Young African-American men need to be reading more text,” he says, “not less.”

Teachers of African-American adolescent males need “the 4 Cs,” he says: compassion, competence, commitment and cultural responsiveness.

He urges these considerations in the selection and discussion of texts with African-American adolescent males:

• Establish a broader definition of literacy instruction that guides the selection of text. It must focus on skill and strategy knowledge, content knowledge and identity development. “It is imperative that these young men have the requisite skills to read text independently. It is also imperative that they become ‘smarter' as a result of their reading,” he says. “It is essential that literacy instruction helps these young men form an identity that allows them to resist some of the negative community forces that are part of their day-to-day realities.”
• Identify a core of “must-read” texts for African-American adolescent males. These include James Baldwin's “The Fire Next Time” and Ralph Ellison's “Invisible Man.”
• Discuss texts in culturally responsive ways. “Students benefit when they can extend the ideas contained in texts into their own lives,” he says.
• Identify texts that balance the out-of-school literacy overload. “Most of the texts they should be exposed to are co-opted by schools' focus to improve reading scores,” he says. “Black males are not exposed to text that leads to academic, cultural, economic and social uplift.”
• Examine your disposition toward using texts with African-American adolescent males. Many teachers back down when they encounter resistance from their students to read beyond the required material, Tatum says. “However, no research currently shows that having students read less advances their academic and other literacy needs.”

In Tatum's case, reading the works of Dick Gregory, Richard Wright, Booker T. Washington and others “released me from a stigmatic trapping of poverty. My teachers connected text to my life,” he says. “It's really something I didn't forget.”

KNPE professor to head new national association

Connie Fox turns to glance outside her office window on the second floor of Anderson Hall, home to NIU's Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education.

Fox hopes to see the nearby tennis courts alive with friendly competition – after all, it's a gorgeous day, and the first in a long while without oppressive humidity and temperatures in the 90s – but finds them vacant.

Such inactivity on the part of Americans and the epidemic of obesity are the targets of the American Association for Physical Activity and Recreation, which Fox will lead the next two years as its first president.

“The downside of technology is that you can sit at your desk all day and be entertained and get some work done, but that doesn't get you out to be active,” Fox said. “There's an increasing level of obesity in children and adults, but we don't really eat so much. We're inactive. It's what we're not doing.”

Fox is the first president of AAPAR, a new 8,300-member group formed through the April merger of the American Association for Active Lifestyle and Fitness and the American Association for Leisure and Recreation. It combines school-focused and lifelong-focused work.

She and other AAPAR leaders plan a January national announcement in Washington , D.C. Their message also is spread through word of mouth, publications and advertising.

Among the group's missions:

• Greater physical activity in schools. “School P.E. programs are not enough. There's got to be physical activity time built into the school day,” Fox said. “It's a harder sell in Illinois, which is the only state to require daily P.E. from kindergarten through 12 th grade, but it's clear P.E. alone is not working. Students need more opportunities for quality and meaningful physical activity.”
• Playground safety. The group's Playground Safety Council provides children with the knowledge of how to participate safely in physical activity outside of school.
• Adapted physical activities for people with disabilities. The group's aquatics council offers accreditation for adapted aquatics programs, she said.
• Lifelong physical activity and meaningful activity for aging populations. The group's Council on Aging and Adult Development conducts workshops for exercise leaders in retirement centers and senior centers. NIU Professor Pamea “Pommy” Macfarlane, who leads many of the workshops, teaches NIU students how to lead exercise with seniors at the Oak Crest Retirement Center in DeKalb.
• Quality assessment. Members of the Measurement Council, which include Fox, research what tests best measure physical activity levels and how to accurately interpret the resulting data.
• Professional development. P.E. teachers can stay in touch with current thinking through seminars on best practices.

Despite her research work in measurement, Fox attributes her 21 years at NIU to another inspiration.

“My real passion is in teacher education,” she said. “I want to see kids in schools maximize their potential. I want to see kids in schools love physical activity and get the most out of their lives. My work at NIU with future P.E. teachers allows me to make a much bigger impact on the quality of daily P.E.”

A college athlete – basketball, volleyball, field hockey and “whatever was in season,” she said – Fox knew her career lie in physical activity when she realized “the only thing consistent is that I'm doing sports.”

Now more likely to play golf, walk, pedal a bike, lift weights or trail behind her big dog, she still seizes any opportunity for physical activity. “This is cool stuff,” she said. “Let's get people active. Let's get 'em up and doing something.”

Geology student spends summer on top of the world

As students returned to campus and compared their summer highlights, Ryan Cumpston had them all beat, hands down. The senior geology major traveled to a mountainous region near the North Pole, spent his days in a skiff at the edge of a massive glacier and rubbed elbows with some of the world's top polar scientists.

“It was the most beautiful place I've ever seen,” said Cumpston, who had never before traveled outside of the United States. “It was a learning experience far beyond any I could get in a classroom.”

NIU Distinguished Research Professor Ross Powell selected Cumpston to take part in a pilot Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, funded by the National Science Foundation. REU programs aim to cultivate future scientists by involving students in ongoing research projects.

Powell and Cumpston spent three weeks in late July and early August in an old coal-mining settlement, now a prime Arctic research center, known as Ny-Ålesund, in the Norwegian island territory of Svalbard . Replete with glaciers and wildlife, including exotic birds, reindeer and Arctic ice seals, the islands are a bout midway between Norway and the North Pole.

Ny-Ålesund is the northernmost settlement on the islands—and on the planet.

The settlement also is the site of a new marine research facility operated for the Norwegian government. The Norwegian Polar Institute and the Norwegian University Centre in Svalbard also provided support for NIU research efforts there.

As part of his orientation , Cumpston was given safety instruction in the use of a rifle and flare gun in the event of an encounter with a polar bear. Adept swimmers, the bears can pose a threat on land or at sea.

Cumpston also had to learn how to swim in a bright orange survival suit, mandatory training for researchers on the Arctic Ocean, where seawater temperatures, even during the summer, are below freezing. The NIU student had little difficulty acclimating to the weather, with summer temperatures reaching above 45 degrees Fahrenheit. But he also had to cope with jet lag and adjust to 24 hours of daylight.

Cumpston spent most of his days aboard either a small aluminium skiff or rubber Zodiac boat, which ventured into the waters of a fjord littered with chunks of ice that frequently break away, or calve, from the glacier. The glacier's ice face is about 180 feet tall and more than a mile wide. Cumpston said he watched as one large iceberg fractured from the glacier and plunged into the water, producing a 30-foot-high wave.

“When the icebergs break off, the small ones sound like gunshots, and the big ones like thunder,” he said. “You don't want to get too close.”

The pilot REU working in the marine setting was part of a larger program that is concentrating on lake studies and being run through Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts . The marine program was run in collaboration with Professor Julie Brigham-Grette at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst , who also brought along an undergraduate participant.

The students and scientists retrieved samples of sediment from the ocean floor and monitored the processes near the end of a glacier. As with most glaciers worldwide, those on Svalbard are retreating and shrinking because of global warming. The NIU research will help shed light on the physical processes and rate of glacial retreat. That will help scientists better predict what will happen with glaciers in the future.

“The REU program must produce significant scientific results, but to complement those results, such programs must ultimately strive to interest more students in the geosciences by providing them with truly legitimate research experiences,” said Powell, a professor in the NIU Department of Geology and Environmental Geosciences. He and his University of Massachusetts colleague are among the world's top scientists studying global warming issues as they relate to the polar regions.

“We wanted to demonstrate that it's possible to work with students in the marine environment of Ny-Ålesund, and will be applying to NSF to extend and expand the program,” Powell said. “I think we can justify having a larger number of participants, so we can bring more NIU students up there in the future. We also hope to collaborate and perhaps conduct an exchange with professors and students from the nearby University Centre in Svalbard.”

Sediment cores and water samples collected during the expedition are being shipped to DeKalb for further study. Cumpston said he plans to write a senior thesis based on his summer research experience. He will present his analysis at NIU and at a geological society meeting later this school year.

“I was honored that I was selected by Dr. Powell and that I got a chance to work with him in the field, basically one-on-one,” Cumpston said. “Ny-Ålesund is an international research center, so I also got to meet scientists from around the world doing projects. This was an opportunity that, as an undergraduate, you couldn't pass up.”

NIU Weather launches on cable Channel 26

NIU Weather has launched a new cable TV channel to alert faculty, staff and students of incoming bad weather and emergency conditions.

Viewers on campus can tune into NIU Weather Channel 26 on cable television for current conditions, forecasts, satellite imagery, radar and severe weather bulletins in real-time for DeKalb County and areas east of the campus. The channel also temporarily simulcasts a local feed of NBC Weather Plus.

NIU Weather is a division of the NIU Physical Plant and Department of Environmental Health and Safety. The university purchased equipment that enabled the cable TV launch so students would have yet another venue for updated weather information.

“It's on the air so we can get warnings and alerts to viewers, but the channel is still in beta mode, meaning it's a work in progress,” staff meteorologist Gilbert Sebenste said.

“I'm very grateful to my colleagues for getting this equipment in so quickly,” Sebenste added. “This was planned to arrive in time for the snowstorms and cold weather of the winter. But things were rushed through fast enough to get a working version of the channel operational by the time students moved in for the start of the semester.”

Channel 26 already has enough equipment functioning to broadcast life-saving and critical weather information immediately to the on-campus community. Programming will be enhanced when a new computer system arrives this fall.

“The content will become all locally driven and produced,” Sebenste said. “The video portion will show real-time graphics, local high-resolution satellite and radar, and live data from our weather station, which updates every two seconds.

“During bad-weather conditions, it will switch to an abbreviated broadcast showing the weather bulletins and live radar as appropriate,” Sebenste added. “By this winter, it will display school closing and any emergency information that everyone needs to know about. In short, when bad weather or the need for a school closure develops, this will be a place for students to go to 24 hours a day.”

The weather service also can be seen live on the Internet at http://weather2.admin.niu.edu/weatherdisplay/ .

Funding for the project came from the NIU Physical Plant, the Department of Environmental Health and Safety and the Heating Plant, working in cooperation with the Division of Media Services and the Office of Student Housing and Dining.

“NIU Weather thanks these departments,” Sebenste said, “for continuing to support severe weather and safety initiatives.”

NIU Study Abroad Fair set for Sept. 15

Students interested in international study-abroad programs and internships can get more information on available opportunities at the 13th annual Study Abroad Fair, scheduled for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 15, in the Duke Ellington Ballroom of the Holmes Student Center.

The fair will feature informational booths on study-abroad programs in about 65 countries. Students can meet with faculty and program representatives who coordinate NIU study-abroad programs worldwide.

Academic advisers and representatives from international study-abroad institutions will be on hand, and i nformation from consulates and tourist offices also will be available. NIU Student Financial Aid staff members will be present to answer questions about aid and provide information on federal and state loans. Potential scholarship information will be available as well.

All attending the fair will receive free goodie bags, enjoy international entertainment and have a chance to win various door prizes.

“The fair encourages participants to explore the many study abroad options NIU has to offer,” said Anne Seitzinger, director of the Study Abroad Office.

“Study abroad isn't just for language majors. Students can seek a program in their major area of study or they can explore options where they might earn credit toward NIU general-education requirements,” Seitzinger added. “Some students will prefer a semester program that offers a variety of courses, while others might want to focus on a topic such as English in Oxford or Ireland, art and design in Italy, or business management practices in England, France or Germany. The possibilities are endless.”

The annual Study Abroad Fair draws more than 500 NIU students seeking study abroad and internship experiences outside the United States. The NIU Study Abroad Office helped more than 300 students to participate in such programs this past year.

“Students who attend the fair will learn about programs and financial aid and loan options that will allow study abroad to become a reality,” Seitzinger said. “Past participants will be present to provide first-hand information and offer guidance and encouragement.”

The fair is not only for students but for faculty as well. “The annual Study Abroad Fair is an excellent opportunity for faculty members to learn how study abroad might benefit them both personally and professionally,” Seitzinger added. “Faculty members can learn how directing an NIU study abroad program provides faculty-development opportunities as well as the means for internationalizing their on-campus courses.”

The fair is free and open to the public.

For more information, visit http://www.niu.edu/niuabroad, send an e-mail to niuabroad@niu.edu or call (815) 753-0420 or (815) 753-0700.

Ushers needed for home football games

Anyone interested in working as an usher at NIU home football games this season should e-mail Sue Hansfield at shansfield@niu.edu by Thursday, Sept. 1.

Credit Union adds new ATM near campus

The NIU Employees Federal Credit Union has added a new ATM in the University City strip mall, between Varsity Subs and Pagliai's Pizza. Withdrawals are available in $5 increments.

NIU Community School begins fall semester

Information and registration materials are available for the many classes, lessons, and ensembles that begin in September in the NIU Community School of the Arts.

The NIU Community School of the Arts is sponsored by the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Northern Illinois University . There are around 80 teachers offering lessons on virtually all musical instruments, as well as art and theater. More than 600 community people from nearly 50 towns and cities travel to DeKalb for lessons and classes.

Children's classes in music and theatre begin at the NIU Community School of the Arts in early September:

“Kinetic Games” (ages 6-9) and “Telling Tall Tales,” two theater classes, are both taught Saturday mornings beginning Sept. 17.

“Prelude” (ages 1-2), “Gavotte” (ages 3-4) and “Development” (ages 4-6) teach the basics in movement, music and rhythm. All are taught Saturday mornings beginning Sept. 10.

“Music for Children with Special Needs” (ages 18 months – 8 years) is designed to facilitate speech and language development in young children with speech delays and/or challenges. Free of charge for first-time attendees. The class meets at 7 p.m. Thursdays, beginning Sept. 1.

“Piano Players I” (ages 6-9) is a group piano class that teaches piano and much more. Maximum of four in class. The class meets at 4 p.m. Mondays, beginning Sept. 12.

Call Renee Page at (815) 753-1450 or visit www.niu.edu/extprograms for more information.

NIU Community School offers financial aid

Financial aid is available for children interested in music, art and theater lessons and classes offered by the NIU Community School of the Arts. Programming begins in early September and ranges from private music lessons, to music ensembles to art and theater classes.

Today is the deadline for applying for financial aid for fall. Application forms are available by calling the office at (815) 753-1450 or online at www.niu.edu/extprograms. The NIU Community School of the Arts is located in Room 132 of the Music Building.

NIU Community School teaches violin lessons

More than 55 students ranging in age from 4 through 17 study violin with one of several Suzuki violin teachers at NIU.

Ann Montzka-Smelser, who is on the NIU faculty as a violin teacher, is director of the community school's Suzuki violin program. Assisting as teachers are Karen Weckerly, Ardis Simonson, and Laurie Rodriguez.

The Suzuki method combines private and group lessons, listening, ear training, and strong parental involvement. Also available through the community school are Suzuki lessons in guitar and piano.

The public is invited to a meeting about young children's music education at 6 p.m. today in the NIU Music Building . Information will be provided about the Suzuki programs, as well as the other early education music classes available for young children in the community school. Teachers will be available to answer questions and students will give brief performances.

Call Renee Page at (815) 753-1450 or visit www.niu.edu/extprograms for more information.

School of Art hosts ‘Flux Design' owners

Jeremy Shamrowicz and Jess Meyer, founders of Flux Design, will speak about the phenomenal growth of their business from 5 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 30, in Room 100 of the Art Building.

The designers began by recycling lumber and scrap metal and turning it into “organic furniture.” Their design principles are timeless and modern at the same time, working in media as varied as concrete, glass, wood, plastic, stone and steel.

For more information, e-mail pvanael@niu.edu or call (815) 753-4521.

Drum corps lovers will
glimpse NIU on EPSN2

NIU is featured in an ESPN2 documentary airing at 9 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 6.

The show includes a segment on the Rosemont Cavaliers, last year's reigning Drum Corps International world champions. Members of the Cavaliers, who took second place at this month's DCI World Championships in Foxborough, Mass., practiced at Huskie Stadium and the Music Building during the spring while they lived in Grant Towers.

Huskie Stadium, coincidentally, hosted all three of the world's top drum corps this summer. The third-place Phantom Regiment, of Rockford, and new DCI champ the Cadets, of Allentown, Pa., both played in the stadium in June.

NIU Community School hosts free Art Express

NIU staff, faculty, and students are invited to send their children to Art Express for free.

This class begins Saturday, Sept. 10, and runs for five weeks. The class is scheduled for 1 to 3 p.m. Saturdays. This innovative program encourages creative thinking in children ages 4 to 14. Teachers are students in an advanced art education class working under School of Art faculty supervision.

The registration form is available online at www.niu.edu/extprograms or at (815) 753-1450. Indicate at the top of the form that you are a student or employee of NIU. The form and a $15 program registration fee should be sent to the NIU Community School of the Arts in Room 132 of the Music Building .

NIU Community School seeks ensemble players

Do you have a child who plays an instrument and would like to join an ensemble?

The NIU Community School of the Arts offers a number of ensembles, some for adults and teens and some for children only. Ensemble opportunities include two string groups, a full orchestra, a jazz band, jazz combos and a Celtic band. (The orchestra and jazz band are by audition only.)

For those who would like to learn a new instrument, consider the steel band and a one-day gamelan workshop. Most ensembles begin in September.

Call Renee Page at (815) 753-1450 or visit www.niu.edu/extprograms for more information.

ITS offers cellular help

To inquire about cellular service for departmental use, contact the Customer Support Center in Swen Parson 120 or call (815) 753-8100.

For those who travel within the Chicago area, a city ordinance went into effect July 8 that prohibits motorists driving within the city limits from using a cellular phone without a hands-free device. The ITS Customer Support Center can order a hands-free kit for department-sponsored cellular phones.

Also, please consider donating your old personal Verizon cellular phone to the ITS-CSC Cellular Re-Cycle Program.

Please visit www.helpdesk.niu.edu for more information on NIU Cellular services.

ITS offers free workshops on on-campus technology

The ITS Customer Support Center is pleased to announce the posting of the Fall 2005 workshop schedule, which includes productivity essentials such as “Defining Relationships in Access 2003,” “Analyzing Data with Excel 2003” and “What Every Webmaster Should Know.”

Please visit www.helpdesk.niu.edu to review the complete schedule.

FIT Program hosts open house

The FIT Program, an on-campus, adult fitness program, will hold an open house from noon to 1 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 15, in Anderson Hall 127. All faculty, staff and community residents are welcome to attend: try out a group exercise class, jump in the pool or just observe all that FIT has to offer.

A drawing will be held for a free FIT membership good for spring 2006 semester.

For details, contact the FIT staff at (815) 753-0335 or via e-mail at fit@niu.edu. No advanced sign-up is required.

NIU Community School needs Performathon donations

The NIU Community School of the Arts needs used sheet music, music books, old tapes, CDs and records. Clean out your piano bench, attics, and basements and donate to a great cause. The used music items will be sold Feb. 25 at the music swap of the Performathon.

Held every two years, the Performathon is the major fund-raising event of the community school. The funds raised are used for the scholarship programs which enable children unable to afford the full cost of arts education to take music lessons, join music ensembles or take classes in music, art or theater.

Since the program began in 1993, nearly $40,000 in scholarship support has been awarded to local youngsters.

Please bring your items to Room 132 Music Building from 8 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 4:30 p.m. If you are unable to do so, contact the office at (815) 753-1450 to arrange for pickup of the items.

Nominations sought for 2005-06 Lincoln Laureate

An outstanding senior from each of the four-year degree-granting institutions of higher learning in Illinois is chosen annually to receive the Lincoln Academy Student Laureate Award. The University Scholarships Committee asks your assistance in identifying the student graduating during 2005 (August 2005, December 2005 or May 2006), who will become NIU's recipient of this year's award.

Lincoln Student Laureates are honored for their overall excellence in both curricular and co-curricular activities. The NIU Student Laureate should have a grade point average of 3.5 or higher and should have demonstrated leadership in extra-curricular activities.

The person selected will represent the university at one of the most distinguished gatherings in the state, a special ceremony held Oct. 22 in the House of Representatives of the Illinois State Capitol. Gov. Rod Blagojevich or his designee will present each Student Laureate with a Lincoln Academy Medallion and a check for $150. A luncheon will follow. Nominator(s) of the recipient are asked to represent the university at this event.

The person selected from NIU to receive this award should be our most outstanding senior student. Please be selective in your nomination. Click here for the 2005 Lincoln Laureate Nomination form and return it with any supplementary pages to the Office of the Scholarship Coordination, 342 Williston Hall, by noon Friday, Sept. 16, for the nomination to be considered by the selection committee.

8-29-05