May 23, 2005, Northern Today Abridged

USOAR program funds 20 projects

When Emily Nothnagel visited Zimbabwe last summer, she discovered two important things: teaching, which she liked, and the long-term remnants of conflict, which she did not.

The French major from Westmont, who just completed her freshman year at NIU, has returned to Africa this summer to study the effects of war in an effort to support peaceful resolutions to conflicts. She left last Wednesday.

Nothnagel will spend two months in Rwanda, where she will observe in schools and interview students about what they remember before the 1994 genocide that claimed 1 million people – and what their lives are like now.

The paper she writes will offer words of caution for Sudan, where a civil war still rages as it consumes lives, homes and innocence.

“I’m against war, but I’m not an extreme pacifist. I’m just studying what happens after conflicts,” said Nothnagel, one of 20 grant winners in this year’s USOAR competition. “I’m just saying, ‘We need to think about the effects of war on civilians before we go somewhere else.’ I like peace, and I want to be able to back it up with, ‘This is what we should be thinking about.’ ”

NIU’s Undergraduate Special Opportunities in Artistry and Research, a grant program funded by the university’s contract with Pepsi, allows undergraduate students to apply for dollars that fund research and artistry projects, often involving trips to other states or other countries.

Now in its sixth year, USOAR makes grants of up to $2,500 available to students who propose projects to their individual colleges and find faculty members to serve as supervisors. Administrators and faculty in each of the six degree-granting colleges then rank and forward the projects to a university-wide committee of faculty for consideration.

“This is a program that’s very important to our undergraduate mission,” Vice Provost Earl “Gip” Seaver said. “It provides undergrads with the opportunity to work in a mentoring relationships with faculty to carry out a research or artistic project, and that’s the kind of activity that really enriches their academic experience. It certainly helps with developing the skills for problem-solving and critical-thinking.”

Projects funded span a great distance, academically and geographically. Some are:

• One student will study the influence of late 18th century church reforms on Mozart’s sacred music.
• Students from the NIU College of Visual and Performing Arts will examine museum education programs.
• A speech-language pathology major will explore the influence of behavioral genetics on language development.
• Three physical education majors will conduct separate projects on a national curriculum in physical education.
• Engineering majors will look into high-performance brake rotors, high-performance race tires and wheels and the dangers of open-wheeled race cars.

“The projects are excellent,” Seaver said. “This is my second year doing this, and I’m just amazed by the quality and the innovative ideas they have, across all the colleges. The students are always just very enthusiastic about doing this and appreciative for having these opportunities.”

Nothnagel said her interest in Africa began when she was 14 or 15, when “I realized I had everything I thought I needed, and that I should be doing something, but I didn’t know what. I started praying about it, looking for opportunities to be helpful.”

She decided to sponsor a child in Uganda – a girl named Gilayida – who she will meet later this month.

Afterward, her work begins.

She will stay in a “Youth With a Mission” guest house and, in addition to schoolchildren, her sources will include young adults around her age. Nothnagel also hopes to gather information in Northern Uganda, but the dangerous political climate might prevent that.

“I’m very interested in talking to people ages 16 to 21. They are going to be running the economy soon,” she said. “What are people my age like? How are they coping? What are they doing for jobs?”

After she writes her report, she will submit copies to the United States government and to the United Nations. “I want them to take it seriously. If I put six months of my life into something, I hope they would,” she said. “This is 10 years later in Rwanda. Do we really want to see this happen to Sudan?”

Her journey will continue after her USOAR funding ends this summer. She will spend four months teaching English to children in two different orphanages and to adults.

Jessica King, a senior journalism major from Springfield, will journey to Belgium to study photojournalism in that country. Her month-long trip is scheduled from mid-June to mid-July.

King will visit photography museums and galleries as well as the photo departments of several Belgian newspapers and magazines “to compare strategies, approaches and theories of how to create great photographs.” She plans to write pieces on each museum and gallery she tours and every photographer she interviews.

Finally, she will create her own photo essay and 1,300-word article on outdoor art performances in either Brussels, the capital of Belgium, or in Antwerp, a thriving city for the arts.

“I really like photography because it captures a moment,” King said, “and people see that moment forever.”

She chose Belgium “because it is often unfairly overlooked in comparison to arts powerhouses such as France and Italy, even though it is the home of many successful and talented photographers. It is, geographically and culturally, at the crossroads of Western Europe.”

King, who recently finished a term as editorial editor at the Northern Star, said she hopes the trip gives her “a deeper perspective on the world of journalism.”

“It’s important to have a perspective that’s just not local but also global,” she said. “I’m looking forward to taking the pictures. I’m looking forward to meeting other photographers and learning a little bit about them.”

For more information about USOAR, call (815) 753-0494 or visit http://www.niu.edu/usoar/ online.

Partners sold on NIU sales program

Already considered one of the best programs of its kind in the country, the Professional Sales Program (PSP) continues to make improvements, lining up corporate sponsorships, publishing a journal and adding named professorships.

Created in 1989, the PSP answered a need identified by the NIU College of Business Board of Executive Advisors: to provide better trained entry level salespeople. Under the leadership of sales professors Dan C. Weilbaker and Rick Ridnour, the program quickly gained a reputation for excellence, with dozens of top-flight companies lined up each year to hire graduates.

Ranked for many years in the top tier of sales training programs, the PSP attained elite status in 2002 when it moved into its high-tech facilities in Barsema Hall and became the first collegiate sales program in the nation to be certified by the Professional Society for Sales and Marketing Training.

Rather than rest on those laurels, the program has continued looking for ways to improve. An instrumental part of that effort was a campaign launched this past semester to secure corporate support for the program.

Companies had long provided some financial support to the program, but more was needed. Practicing what they preach in their classes, the faculty honed their sales pitch and began approaching likely partners, hoping to find 15 interested businesses. Within a few months, 13 of the 15 were snapped up, including the three top-tier “Presidential” partnerships, each of which cost $25,000 a year for three years.

That quick success came as no surprise to Weilbaker, who says the quality of the program's graduates made the proposal an easy sell.

“Our students are our best advertising,” Weilbaker says, noting that this semester, 30 of 32 students enrolled in the class had jobs before graduation, and the remaining two had declined offers.

In return for their investment, participating companies attain preferred recruiter status, increasing their access to the students enrolled in the program. That access includes priority consideration to provide guest lecturers, opportunities to sponsor events (such as the program's annual Business Golf 101 golf outing), and invitations to an exclusive reception following the department's Meet the Firm Night.

Participating companies are already seeing a return on their investment.

“Representatives from McKesson Pharmaceutical Group (a Presidential level sponsor) told me they felt like they had already gotten their money's worth after just three months,” Weilbaker says.

This year the partnership program generated $122,000, and that amount will grow to nearly $200,000 in the third year of the program as fees at the three lower levels of sponsorship gradually increase. That money will be used to help keep the program's technology up to date and to offset some other ongoing costs. However, it also has allowed the program to do some exciting things, including the creation of two new named professorships.

As part of their commitment, each of the three Presidential level partners sponsors a professorship. Weilbaker has held a named professorship in the program for several years and his current sponsor, Phillip Morris USA, was quick to snap up a Presidential level sponsorship to continue that relationship and Ridnour is now the Enterprise Professor of Sales, sponsored by Enterprise Rent-a-Car.

The third named professorship, sponsored by the McKesson Pharmaceutical Group, will help fund a new full-time professorship within the program.

“We will be looking for a top-flight academic with sales experience to fill that position, and being able to offer a named professorship like this should help us attract some outstanding applicants,” says Chair of Marketing Denise Schoenbachler.

Having so many named professorships in such a small program is unusual, Weilbaker says.

“Most other sales programs around the country are lucky if they have one named professorship, so to have three is really quite a compliment for our program,” he says.

The funding generated by the corporate partnerships also will help the department pay for the publication of the Journal of Selling and Major Account Management.

One of only two journals in the world dedicated to the topic of sales, the publication had been produced in England for its first five years of existence. Weilbaker, who served on the board of directors for the publication, noted that it seemed to be losing steam. He stepped in, made some inquiries, and negotiated a deal to transfer the journal to NIU.

The journal features academic articles (selected through a double blind refereed process), as well as pieces written by sales practitioners.

NIU will take ownership of the journal in July, and Weilbaker, who will serve as editor, hopes to have an edition published by January, with subsequent editions being published quarterly.

“We're delighted to be publishing this journal,” says Schoenbahler. “Bringing this publication in-house speaks to our dedication to the academic discipline dedicated to the study of sales.”

Good Shepherd nurses nearly NIU graduates,
receive certificates toward bachelor’s degrees

Twelve nurses from Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital last week received certificates from Northern Illinois University to recognize their completion of the nursing component of a bachelor’s of science degree.

Shirley Richmond, dean of the NIU College of Health and Human Sciences, and some of the NIU faculty involved attended the ceremony in the hospital’s Meadow Room.

The nurses, all of whom are registered nurses, have taken the nursing classes necessary to earn a bachelor’s degree at the hospital. Seven faculty members from the NIU School of Nursing, part of the College of Health and Human Sciences, have driven from DeKalb to Barrington to teach in a program that scheduled two classes back-to-back one night a week.

Some general education credits still are required for all but one of the12, and the nurses can travel to DeKalb or to community colleges to finish.

“This has been great. Everyone appreciates that more education leads you to a better career outcome as well as a different level of patient care,” said Brigid Lusk, acting chair of the NIU School of Nursing. “It’s beneficial for the hospital, because in a time of a nursing shortage, to be able to say ‘we’ve got a baccalaureate completion program on site’ is a strong recruiting tool. It’s also nice for the nurses. They work long hours, and many have families. It really cuts down on all the busy work of getting a degree.”

Renee Norberg, manager of clinical education at Good Shepherd, said the on-site course delivery was “a real convenience for our nurses” that will open the doors to many other educational and professional opportunities.

“Many of the nurses had planned on going back to school to advance their nursing degree to a BSN but, due to life issues, they weren’t able to do so,” Norberg said. “Many associates have been waiting for a program like this, and Good Shepherd was glad to collaborate with NIU to bring it here.”

The partnership between NIU and Good Shepherd, which began in 2003, does not mitigate the nursing shortage. It makes working nurses better.

“They can certainly get more leadership positions in nursing. They can go forward and become advanced practice nurses,” Lusk said. “Some hospitals are applying for magnet status – an indication that they have expert nursing care – and they need a certain percentage of baccalaureate nurses.”

Meanwhile, research has shown nurses with more education are safer. A study reported in 2003 in the American Medication Association Journal noted four fewer deaths per 1,000 new surgical patients when 20 to 60 percent of nurses hold bachelor’s of science degrees in nursing.

“Any time you have an opportunity to enhance a person’s knowledge base, and review their skills, I think you will improve patient care,” Norberg said. “The students also expressed how they were amazed about the amount of new knowledge they now possessed, as well as their ability to apply and use that knowledge in the clinical setting. Another important component is that they learned to challenge their own thinking.”

“We’ve had very good support from the hospital in terms of equipment,” Lusk said of Good Shepherd, which offered the classroom space free of rent, collected the transcripts and provided PowerPoint. “And the hospital is very pleased with the program. Most of the students have completed the program. We’re hoping to have a new cohort start in the fall.”

Norberg shares that goal.

“I hope to bring another BSN completion program here to Good Shepherd in the near future, and to maybe even bring additional programs such as a master’s in nursing,” she said. “The program brought together associates who otherwise wouldn’t have known each other. The students have built long-lasting relationships and an internal support system.”

Northern’s nursing program is designed to meet the needs of the registered nurse who wishes to complete a bachelor of science degree with a major in nursing. The amount of time required for a registered nurse to fulfill the requirements of the baccalaureate degree completion program varies depending upon the amount of transfer credit.

The B.S. degree with a major in nursing prepares the professional nurse for leadership roles in patient care in the total spectrum of health care agencies and settings.

Graduates are prepared to function with baccalaureate competencies in the delivery of nursing care, and assisting in the improvement of health care delivery systems. They also are skilled in using the knowledge of the physical and social sciences as integral aspects of nursing, and in entering graduate programs to further increase their nursing competencies and skills.

Fire damages College of Engineering building lab

Clean up continues today at the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology after fire damaged a laboratory late Saturday night.

Damage from the blaze was contained to one chamber of a first floor “clean room” where students and faculty work to create microelectronics parts. Preliminary indications are that the fire was caused by an electrical short. No official estimate of damages was available this morning.

“All safety systems – alarms, sprinklers and all other safety systems – functioned as they were supposed to,” said Promod Vohra, acting dean of the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology. “Because of that, damage was limited to just a portion of one of the 29 laboratories in the building.”

First word of the fire came at about 11:34 p.m. Saturday, when an alarm sounded in the building and at the NIU Department of Public Safety, which immediately dispatched units from the DeKalb Fire Department. Due to concerns about the potential for hazardous materials in the building, DeKalb summoned assistance from fire departments in Sycamore, Cortland , Malta , Rochelle, Waterman and Elburn, said DeKalb Fire Chief Lanny Russell.

Shortly after firefighters arrived, they entered the building along with NIU Building Services personnel, who shut off the sprinkler system. When firefighters entered the laboratory, the fire already was out. The call passed without further incident, Russell said.

All damage, both from the blaze and from the sprinkler system, was limited to the machine and the surrounding portion of the chamber of the clean room, said Mike Saari, director of the NIU Physical Plant. The building was ventilated overnight and reopened Sunday afternoon, Saari said.

University officials will work with insurance adjusters to determine the full extent of the damage and begin repairs.

Friends of the NIU Libraries ice cream social and baseball talk

Come join the Friends of the NIU Libraries for an afternoon of ice cream and baseball on Thursday, June 2, in the Staff Lounge on the lower level of Founders Memorial Library.

The ice cream social will be from 4 to 4:30 p.m., followed by a Friends business meeting.

At 5 p.m. Neil Shalin of Naperville will entertain us with highlights from his book, "Out by a Step: The 100 Best Players Not in the Baseball Hall of Fame." The book, coauthored by his brother Mike, includes a list of the top 100 players they felt should be, but have not been, inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. The brothers chose Dick Allen, former Chicago White Sox and Philadelphia Phillies player, as their number one pick. A discussion will follow the presentation, and Shalin will be available to autograph copies of his book.

Everyone is invited to attend. For more information, call 753-9394 or email cditzler@niu.edu.

ITS blocks Sober.P virus

A new virus discovered earlier this month called Sober.P was proliferating rapidly. It was most commonly spread via .zip file attachments.

ITS reports that 397,000 bad extensions have been blocked by itsCan-Spam software. Due to a vigilant response taken by ITS e-mail and security experts, there have been no reports of infected machines at NIU.

ITS will continue to block the following suspicious file extensions until the threat is lifted completely: .zip, .pif, .scr, .exe, .com, .cpl, .bat, .cmd.

For updated information, watch the ITS Web site.

ITS to decommission GWIA June 29

The original GroupWise Internet Agent (GWIA) is scheduled to be decommissioned on Wednesday, June 29. Any customer using the prefix "internet:" to send mail off campus will be affected.

ITS records indicate that approximately 200 customers may have this addressing format stored in their personal GroupWise Address Book. In May or June, ITS will contact anyone who appears to be sending messages through the old Internet agent. These customers will need to update their addresses to avoid service interruption.

There is no longer a reason for anyone using the Windows GroupWise Client to enter the prefix "internet:."

Those using the Macintosh platform with GroupWise client version 5.2.8 (or older) will be required to change their prefix to "gwiasmtp:" for off campus e-mail addressing. The goal is to have all Macintosh users upgrade their machines to the current operating system and GroupWise client which will eliminate the problems associated with the older clients. However, since this is a financial hardship for some of our users we will continue to offer this legacy option for a while longer.

For more information on the scheduled decommissioning of the GWIA, and how it may impact GroupWise users, please visit the ITS Web site, or contact the ITS Customer Support Center at 753-8100.

ITS releases security report

ITS has released a Spring 2005 security report detailing current IT security issues. The report is available on the ITS Web site.
Kudos

Brian Pumilia, assistant director of admission, received the James Alexander Newcomer Award earlier this month at the annual meeting of the Illinois Association for College Admissions Counseling.

The award is given to admissions counselors in the profession five years or less who have demonstrated strong service and commitment to the college admissions profession. It is one of the most prestigious awards given by IACAC.

Pumilia, an NIU alum, joined the Admissions Office in 2000. His territory includes the western suburbs of Chicago, McHenry County, Rockford and Waubonsee Community College.

* * *

Brianno Coller, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been named the recipient of the 2004 College of Engineering and Engineering Technology Faculty of the Year Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Education.

The award was established to recognize excellence and accomplishments in areas such as excellence in teaching, publications on teaching methodologies, education research and innovation in labs.

5-23-05