May 15, 2006, Northern Today Abridged

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May 17, 2006, Northern Today Abridged

UNLV administrator chosen to become next provost

Raymond W. Alden III, executive vice president and provost at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has been chosen to fill the same position at NIU beginning July 1.

Alden’s appointment, which is subject to approval by the NIU Board of Trustees, concludes a nearly eight-month national search for NIU’s next chief academic officer.

NIU President John Peters said Alden’s extensive experience and success in leading a fast-growing regional university to national prominence made him a “natural choice” for the NIU provost’s position.

“In Ray Alden we have attracted ‘the best of the best,’ ” Peters said. “He is a national figure in higher education with strong credentials in strategic planning, and he understands both how far we’ve come and how much further we can go to serve the needs of our state and region.”

A zoologist by training, Alden spent more than a decade at UNLV, first as dean of the College of Sciences and later as provost. During his tenure as UNLV’s chief academic officer, he guided that university through a massive increase in enrollment (from 19,000 to 28,000 students in less than 10 years); helped develop 43 new degree programs including 13 new doctoral degrees; oversaw development of 28 new research and service centers; and hired nearly 350 new faculty.

Also at UNLV, Alden led efforts to establish a new regional campus that includes a dental program and a research and technology park. External funding increased fivefold during his tenure as provost, while the university’s instructional budget grew by more than 40 percent. Public-private partnerships have also grown under Alden’s leadership: Dozens of agreements with Las Vegas-area businesses and industry have created new internship and service-learning opportunities for students, as well as new revenue streams for academic programs.

“NIU is a great university with a very bright future,” Alden said. “I was attracted both by the university’s growing reputation and by the themes President Peters established to guide NIU through its next phase of development. As I met with faculty and staff on campus, it became clear that NIU has a very strong ‘can-do’ attitude. That’s a quality you don’t find everywhere, and it’s going to be a critical component of the university’s success in the future.

“I’m very impressed with the progress Northern has made in a very short period of time and under very serious budget constraints,” Alden added. “The number of partnerships with schools, businesses, and national laboratories; the growth of multidisciplinary programs; the integration of classroom and extracurricular learning experiences – these are all signs of a very healthy, forward-thinking institution that’s growing in the way it needs to grow. NIU is at or near the top of a very short list of public universities making the transition from regional to national status, and I’m excited at the prospects of becoming part of that effort.”

Alden’s own presence on the national higher education stage includes membership on the executive committee of the Council on Academic Affairs of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges(NASULGC). He also serves as chair of NASULGC’s Committee on Institutional Quality and Effectiveness, leading efforts to better define successful outcomes at public universities nationwide.

Prior to his tenure at UNLV, Alden spent 21 years at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where he served on the faculty and, during the last 15 years, as director of ODU’s multidisciplinary Applied Marine Research Laboratory. He holds a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Florida, as well as a bachelor’s degree in biology from Stetson University in DeLand, Florida.

A 19-member search committee made up of faculty, staff and university administrators spent nearly eight months reviewing applications and nominations for the provost position. They were aided in their efforts by executive search firm Isaacson, Miller of Washington, D.C.

“I am extremely grateful to the search committee and our search consultants for their guidance and expertise,” Peters said. “We are also indebted to all of the faculty and staff who participated in interviews and shared their thoughts during the evaluation process. All of our finalists were impressive and highly qualified – that reflects well on our search and our institution.”

NIU historian Bowers will serve
as Fulbright Roving Scholar in Norway

J.D. Bowers will get to know “the land of the midnight sun” quite well over the course of the next year: The NIU history professor has won a prestigious Fulbright Scholar grant to teach in Norway.

Beginning in late August, Bowers will serve for nine months as the Fulbright Roving Scholar in American Studies for Norway, where he'll present lectures and workshops to high school teachers and students throughout the Scandinavian country.

“The aim is to infuse U.S. history into the world history perspective and English curriculums of the Norwegians,” said Bowers, who serves as coordinator of secondary teacher certification in the NIU Department of History.

His interest in the Fulbright Program was piqued when he attended a seminar hosted by NIU International Programs last year.

“That inspired me to apply, and thankfully I did,” he said. “I'll be able to come back and share with my students what it's like to live and work in a foreign culture with perspectives on history that are different from our own. One of my hopes is to make some connections so I can eventually take student teachers to Norway for short cultural immersions.”

Bowers has traveled widely, having worked previously as an American history teacher at high schools in Hawaii, Virginia and Uruguay. He also is no stranger to Scandinavia .

“I have some distant relatives in Sweden and I've been to Norway before,” Bowers said. “It's a fascinating country, with some distinct cultural differences that we often overlook.”

A Fulbright panel based in Oslo interviewed Bowers via a real-time video feed over the Internet in January. The NIU professor won the competitive grant based on his proposal to lecture on topics including the U.S. history of religion, consumerism and pop culture and the media.

American media lectures will include viewings of televisions programs such as “The Simpsons” and “The West Wing,” Bowers said.

“Ironically, one of the more popular programs in Norway is Garrison Keillor's radio show ('A Prairie Home Companion'),” Bowers said. “Norwegians will actually schedule family time to listen to Keillor, who has been known to poke good-natured fun at Midwesterners of Scandinavian origin. The Norwegians think he's hilarious.”

Bowers also will lecture on the history and development of three distinctly different areas of the United States: Hawaii, the Midwest and the Southwest. He plans to bring historical context to current U.S. events as well.

Accompanying Bowers to Norway will be his wife, Kristy Wilson Bowers, who is an adjunct professor of history at NIU, and their twin daughters.

About 800 U.S. faculty and professionals will travel abroad to some 150 countries for the 2006-2007 academic year through the Fulbright Scholar Program.

Established in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the program's purpose is to build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries. The Fulbright Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Retired NIU professor wins Fulbright
to expand learning disabilities work in Israel

Susan Vogel's years of work in support for students with learning disabilities has earned a Fulbright award for the retired Northern Illinois University professor.

Vogel, a Distinguished Research Professor Emerita, is already at Tel Hai College in Israel for a 21-day project to adapt and expand her “College Students with Learning Disabilities” handbook.

“For Susan, this is a continuation of a long commitment to Tel Hai and working with individuals in the field of learning disabilities,” said Norm Stahl, chair of the Department of Literacy Education, located in the College of Education.

Vogel is immersed in four activities at Tel Hai, where the Support Center for Students with Learning Disabilities is a national model for teaching students with dyslexia and other learning disabilities.

With remarkable success rates, the center teaches its students the skills and strategies needed to succeed in a rigorous academic setting. In 2003, 15 percent of all Tel Hai students and 22 percent of all honors students had learning disabilities.

Vogel and her Tel Hai colleagues will create three versions of Vogel's handbook; one for students with learning disabilities, one for faculty and staff in colleges and universities and one for parents of adult college students with learning disabilities.

She also will meet with key administrators and faculty at Tel Hai to share her perspective on the college's decade-old Intensive Summer Preparation Program for students with disabilities and to compare and contrast it to others in Israel and the United States.

Her third activity involves the students themselves.

“I will meet with a select number of students. Some will already be attending Tel Hai and be having difficulty achieving academic success. Others will be applicants to the program. These students will have very severe learning disabilities and/or concomitant disabilities and may not be easily accommodated at the college and, therefore, not necessarily be good candidates for the intensive summer program,” Vogel said.

“I will be meeting with the staff regarding these applicants and, for those students already enrolled, I will try to assist them in making recommendations regarding compensatory and instructional strategies, accommodations and a program of studies and/or counseling and remediation.”

Finally, Vogel will help to update the telephone follow-up interview process and prepare an online version so that interviewers can enter the participants' responses directly on screen. She will script opening and closing comments and write responses to anticipated questions.

Alumna wins Fulbright to teach English

Kathy Taylor Schlieper will graduate Saturday, May 13, from Northern Illinois University with a master's degree specializing in English as a Second Language.

Come the fall, Schlieper will put her new degree to good use with an eight-month Fulbright appointment to Comenius University in the Slovak Republic. She will teach English to students at the university, located in the capital city of Bratislava.

“This will give Kathy a chance to see internationally how the teaching of English as a foreign language is done, and it will provide her enormous opportunities and learning experiences to bring back to this country,” added Richard Orem, an NIU Presidential Teaching Professor in the College of Education's Department of Literacy Education. “Hopefully she'll be able to share that learning with others when she returns.”

Comenius University is about the size of NIU, Schlieper said, with a faculty numbering about 2,000. She reports for orientation Sept. 20 and, beyond that, has few expectations.

“I am absolutely thrilled. More than 5,000 people applied for 1,100 positions in over 150 countries. It's very competitive, so I feel really fortunate,” said Schlieper, who has taught English at Kishwaukee Community College and Waubonsee Community College to English language learners.

“I am nervous about the language. The Slovak language is unfamiliar to me,” she added. “I definitely hope to learn all about their culture and the traditions. My biggest goal is to get to know some of the Slovak people personally. That's, to me, what this is all about.”

Schlieper, whose four children are between the ages of 25 and 30, plans to sell her home and put her things into storage. She hopes her Fulbright experience will lead to finding a permanent position in Eastern Europe that would extend her stay.

“I've always been interested in international anything, especially travel,” said Schlieper, who's visited Asia, Brazil, Germany, India and elsewhere. “I've had a lot of exchange students live in my home over the years. In 1997, my daughter had a Fulbright scholarship to Croatia. I visited Bosnia with my late husband. But I've never had the opportunity to live abroad.”

The Sycamore resident also has a master's degree in speech pathology from Washington University in St. Louis and a bachelor's degree in linguistics from the University of Iowa.

Literacy Education professors win grant to study
literacy coaching's impact on student achievement

Susan L'Allier and Laurie Elish-Piper, faculty members in the Department of Literacy Education, are the recipients of a 2006 Elva Knight Research Grant from the International Reading Association.

The prestigious honor – no more than four are awarded each year – was funded for $9,980. The maximum funding possible was $10,000.

“We're very excited because we really believe in this project,” said Elish-Piper, director of the NIU Reading Clinic. “It's critical information for us to have access to in the field.”

“Because the current responsibilities of learning coaches are so widely varied and encompass such a myriad of activities,” L'Allier added, “our hope is that this study will narrow down or help us pinpoint the critical tasks literacy coaches can use to promote student achievement.”

L'Allier and Elish-Piper will spend the 2006-07 academic year collecting data from 10 literacy coaches who work with an estimated 150 teachers and 3,750 students.

Selected literacy coaches, all of whom will have at least two years of experience, are highly qualified educators who help teachers improve their reading instruction.

The full-time coaches collaborate with teachers before and after school, during free periods and other professional development events; their guidance also comes through modeling techniques in the classroom, working with small groups of children and even co-teaching lessons.

NIU's researchers will examine coaching tasks using instruments they have developed and field-tested, as well collecting pre- and post-test scores of students.

They will use hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to analyze multiple factors to see which aspects of the coaching are most helpful on which aspects of student achievement. Another part of the research will determine if there is a “threshold” of coaching necessary to affect achievement.

Classroom teachers are expected to offer their perceptions of the effectiveness of the coaches who work with them.

“The literacy coaches are very interested in prioritizing the kinds of coaching activities they use. They're interested in how they can best spend their time,” Elish-Piper said. “They have hunches that their coaching is helping, but they don't know what aspects of the coaching are most related to gains in student achievement in reading. Everything in schools is data-driven now, and we need data to say how well it's working.”

NIU technical theater students ready for summerstock work

Summer “break” means three things to Tracy Nunnally's students of technical theater: work, work and more work.

Most of his young accomplices are primed to scatter across the United States and even the world to perform backstage internships in professional and community theaters.

Matt Massoth will serve as a co-technical director at the Timberlake Playhouse in nearby Mt. Carroll. Melissa Cozza is headed for the Utah Shakespeare Festival. Sarah Fijalkiewicz, Anna Goller and John Moore will spend their summer at the Glimmerglass Opera House in New York.

Others are bound for California, Florida Wisconsin and perhaps even Liverpool, England.

All will take Nunnally's theory-meets-practice curriculum with them. All will return to share first-hand ideas and knowledge gained over a summer of 14- to 18-hour days.

“They go all over,” says Nunnally, assistant professor and technical director in the NIU School of Theatre and Dance, part of the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

“Most of our people are invited, usually by March. It's like the draft picks in the NFL or the NBA. Most of ours are gone in the first round, and all by the second,” he adds. “One of my undergrads had four positions to pick from, and they were all jockeying for her.”

Directors of summer theaters continue to call Nunnally looking for workers, he says, but they're too late and out of luck.

“I'm real proud of all of my students. They've earned it,” he says. “These are not gimme positions. These are positions of authority and respect, and you need to know your business.”

Nunnally makes sure his students understand his most important message before they leave for their internships.

“I tell them that, up to a point, your technical expertise isn't what will make or break the position. What will make or break the position is how well you get along with others. These are the people who are going to get asked back,” he says. “Theater is not rocket science. We call it 'play' for a reason.”

Living behind the curtains and out of a suitcase is a common experience for Nunnally's students, many of whom have jumped aboard planes at a moment's notice to work alongside their teacher during his professional gigs.

As president of Hall Associates Flying Effects, a company that enables actors and props to soar across the stage and the audience in productions such as “Peter Pan” and “Beauty and the Beast,” Nunnally almost always taps his NIU students to assist.

He takes them to production meetings and to jobs in New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, Miami and Seattle. He takes them to Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei and Tokyo.

Last summer's clients included six productions of “Peter Pan” from New York to California and three productions of “Beauty and the Beast.” The fall brought four more stagings of “Peter Pan” and the annual “Living Christmas Tree” in Knoxville, Tenn.

“This has grown into such a worldwide business,” he says, “and I drag my students around the world with me.”

It's all part of his mission to make his students employable and more marketable.

To wit: Last December, with Finals Week just behind him, Nunnally was preparing to spend Christmas with his son in Canada. Then the phone rang. Broadway. Could he build, deliver and assemble flying effects mechanisms for a remount production of “Dr. Doolittle” in Indiana? Quickly?

“Absolutely” was the answer, effectively and immediately canceling holiday plans for Nunnally and a number of his graduate students who beat a hasty return to campus.

The crew spent days and nights in the shop of the Stevens Building, even logging one 48-hour stretch, to get the job done before classes resumed in January. When the location changed to Chattanooga on short notice, the NIU team took turns driving through the night to meet the trucks in Tennessee the next morning for the unloading and installation.

“Theater,” Nunnally says, “is an exercise in flexibility. It's finding the best, cheapest, safest and most efficient way to produce the safest environment for the actors and the most pleasing environment for the audience.”

Students in his automation class this spring designed and built a revolving turntable, financed by a dinner-theater company in Washington, D.C., that enjoyed a trial run on the stage of NIU's O'Connell Theatre during a February production.

Graduate students Eric Boxer and Ryan Poethke are federally licensed to program and operate the Pangolin laser, which can create Tinkerbell, the face of the wizard of Oz or almost anything needed or imagined. The government certification is mandated because the laser, used improperly, can blind actors or even pilots flying far above the earth.

When time permits, Nunnally hopes to lead a workshop in use of the laser for any interested technical theater students. He'd also like to put a laser show on the stage of the O'Connell accompanied by loud rock 'n' roll music.

But time is an issue for Nunnally, who is actually considering a week off this summer simply as a birthday gift for his daughter. She's turning 21, Nunnally says, and a vacation for her dad is all she wants.

He has hired a couple students to help him clean and refurbish the department's gear over the long academic break. He's got some more “Peter Pan” and “Beauty and the Beast” jobs. He's been approached about “Curtains,” a new musical opening in July in Los Angeles that requires former “Frasier” star David Hyde Pierce to get knocked off a bridge and then vanish.

Nunnally also will host the annual flying workshop the week of June 5, and later this summer he'll assist in lighting a stuntman on fire to demonstrate that technique.

“Our students here aren't just doing the school's projects. There's nothing being done in the real world that we can't, or aren't, doing here. The only issues are the facilities, the time and the tools,” Nunnally says.

“We have the skills to bring the quality to the stage as do the top companies in the world. Producers are choosing us over professional companies because our products are better. Special effects are just that – they're special – but you have to contract us early to let the students progress at their own pace,” he adds. “My goal – my job here – is to make these people employable.”

DeKalb Public Library mural wins funds
from grant application written by NIU students

When Chicago artist Gustaf Dalstrom discovered the mural he'd painted for DeKalb's Haish Memorial Library was too tall for its intended space, he took pen to paper to propose a solution that would make everything right.

Seventy-one years later, with the old Works Progress Administration-commissioned canvas that hangs above the DeKalb Public Library's fireplace showing signs of dirt and rips, graduate students in the NIU Department of Communicative Disorders wrote a grant proposal that would make everything right again.

They were confident of success – “It's a public work of art, and I think that people care about that and want it to stay in good shape,” said Dan Franks, one of the students in Professor Nancy Castle's class on writing grants last fall – and they were correct.

Leaders of the DeKalb County Community Foundation announced Wednesday, May 3, they have awarded a $5,000 challenge grant to the DeKalb Public Library to pay for a restoration of the mural.

Under the challenge grant, the foundation will match each dollar contributed up to $5,000 to help pay the expected bill of $10,000.

“It's a glorious day for the library and for the city of DeKalb and for WPA aficionados all over the United States,” said Dee Coover, interim director of the DeKalb Public Library. “This mural is mentioned in books, but has really not been noticed. This is our opportunity to make it well known.”

Jerry Smith, executive director of the DeKalb County Community Foundation, praised Castle's class for “restoring something with tremendous historical significance.”

“This involved a number of students in not only discovering what a local facility like the DeKalb Public Library has, but getting an opportunity to write a real-life grant proposal,” Smith said. “It's a marvelous thing that students, who many times see DeKalb as simply the home of the university, are able to go out and get into the infrastructure that is our community.”

The Chicago Conservation Co., which specializes in WPA projects, has been contracted for the restoration. Coover expects work will begin in the next few months.

Students in NIU's museum studies certificate program are working to produce informational literature on the mural that will help schoolchildren and interested community members who come to the library to watch the restoration process.

“The offer to write the grant and participate in this project was such a gift to the library,” Coover said. “It was on the back burner for many years, and all of a sudden, we had somebody who offered to bring it to the front burner. That really put into motion a project that previously lacked any momentum.”

It was one of many grant applications Castle's class submitted to several local organizations for their use, moving the course from the theoretical to the practical.

“Usually I do a ‘you're running an agency that's helping deaf people; what would you do?' project. Instead of doing that, I really sort of changed the class to a ‘how do you scout for foundation money?' project,” Castle said.

“My students are going to get degrees in deaf rehabilitation counseling, and usually those are programs that are low on funds. Even though these projects weren't about disability, the process of grant-writing is the same.”

At the same time, she became aware of the mural and its condition after a conversation with Coover, a friend. “It was like ‘Shazam!' I put two and two together,” Castle said.

Students assigned to the mural project were given a copy of a June 11, 1934, letter from the artist to Swen Parson of the Haish Memorial Library. The second page is a sketch showing library officials what parts of the mural should remain after trimming.

“I have looked over the design and think it would be badly damaged if a considerable amount were taken off the bottom,” Dalstrom wrote. “I am suggesting that the mural extend to the dark portion of the fireplace as shown in the rough sketch I am enclosing and which I think will look just as well or better than originally planned.”

The classroom assignment earned front-page coverage in the Nov. 19, 2005, DeKalb Daily Chronicle.

“I really liked the project,” Franks said. “Once we got past the mechanics of the grant and got to the nitty-gritty – the history of the mural, the history of the library – we were able to learn a lot. I didn't know there were so many WPA murals, and that so many of them had been destroyed. There's such a story in them.”

“It's the only class I've taught where the students have continued to e-mail me afterward to ask, ‘Have you heard? Have you heard?' I finally wrote back, ‘Congratulations! You did it,' ” Castle said. “The students have found this to be helpful. It's not a required competency, but morally, we feel like if we're going to prepare them for jobs of the future they need to have this skill of grant-writing.”

Other NIU-related projects receiving DeKalb County Community Foundation grants were:

Department of Literacy Education, $2,000 for children's books and project materials
School of Art, $1,000 for DVD production
School of Music, $1,000 for chamber choir outreach

Great expectations
NIU merchandising, marketing students
advise Kohl's executives for scholarships

Soccer moms, or Hillary Duff wannabes?

A supervised play area offering while-you-shop child care, or a hip lounge with egg-shell-shaped chairs, plasma TVs and copies of Seventeen magazine?

Six executives from Kohl's faced those competing recommendations for targeted customer bases during a visit last week to Barsema Hall, where they heard marketing advice on a variety of topics from 32 students in Julie Hillery's retailing class.

Hillery, an associate professor in the NIU School of Family, Consumer and Nutrition Sciences who also holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Marketing, is the Kohl's Professor of Retailing and Merchandising.

The top four teams in the fourth annual competition won prizes of $2,000, $1,000, $500 and $500 respectively.

Each team had two students from the Textiles, Apparel and Merchandising program in the College of Health and Human Sciences and two marketing students from the College of Business.

“I introduce the project the first week of class and tell them to look at any current trend in the retail market today and to examine Kohl's in that trend,” said Hillery, who in 2005 won an Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching award. “They definitely have to look at the real world. This is not textbook stuff.”

Students update Hillery on their progress throughout the semester while they visit Kohl's stores and hear guest lectures from Kohl's management about the corporate philosophy.

Todd McClement, university relations manager for the Menomonee Falls, Wis.-based retailer, calls the scholarship competition “phenomenal.” Good ideas “definitely” are passed up to senior management, he said.

“These are ideas on things we at Kohl's can do to better our company and to improve our business and service,” McClement said. “The students have done their research. They've done competitive analysis. Is it working? How could we adapt?”

Hillery's students put forward ideas on celebrity endorsements, ethnic markets, “massclusivity,” pet products, “retailtainment,” simplifying lifestyles and technology. Their presentations required a SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats – and real-world applications.

In just the first half-hour, the executives were encouraged to focus more on the “junior” market of teen girls and warned about losing sight of their “original” appeal to mothers.

In return, the executives asked tough questions: What kind of financial return are Kohl's competitors seeing on “retailtainment” ventures? Can Kohl's justify turning over valuable retail space to a non-profit lounge in a revenue-per-square-foot equation? Would the addition of self-check lanes escalate theft, and how would they still promote Kohl's charge cards?

“There's a competitive spirit among the students,” Hillery said. “They're trying to out-do each other with current stuff they know is relevant.”

Kohl's long has expected great things from NIU.

Hillery initiated the relationship about eight years ago as she sought internships for her TAM students. The percentage of Kohl's interns from NIU who then enter the retailer's executive training program now is above the national average. So is the job acceptance rate of NIU students who interview with the company and the subsequent retention rate.

“We hire 20-plus students from NIU every year, and it's continued to grow year after year. We're excited to see it grow to 40 or 50 every year,” McClement said. “We like to show students who Kohl's is – we're the fastest-growing retailer in the United States – and we like to bring in the best and brightest.”

Meanwhile, the partnership automatically breeds the next flock of “best and brightest.”

“I learn from these projects every day,” Hillery said. “I learn about all the trends, which is stuff I can come back with next year. I learn from the Kohl's evaluations: Are these ideas applicable to what Kohl's can use? This industry changes so fast that you need to know these things or you're left behind.”

Thirteenth MCTI under way

Jane Elliott has spent nearly four decades helping people to feel – and exert – prejudice.

In her internationally known “Brown Eye/Blue Eye” anti-discrimination activity, participants are labeled inferior or superior based solely on the color of their eyes as the role-playing exercise dramatically exposes the anatomy of intolerance.

Now Elliott has come to NIU as today's keynote speaker for the 13th Multicultural Curriculum Transformation Institute, which began Monday.

“Jane has developed quite a lot of expertise in the area of diversity training,” said Amy Levin, director of Women's Studies and chair of the MCTI task force. “We're hoping she can bring some of her experiences to us and work with our participants in expanding awareness of multicultural activities.”

Elliott, a recipient of the National Mental Health Association Award for Excellence in Education, spoke in the Heritage Room of the Holmes Student Center. A reception in her honor is scheduled from 4 to 6 p.m. today in the Barsema Alumni and Visitors Center.

Other open sessions this week in the Heritage Room included a panel on disabilities, a panel on social class and a panel on gender.

A panel on race and ethnicity is scheduled from 9 a.m. to noon Thursday in the Center for Latino and Latin American Studies followed by an open discussion on race and ethnicity (1:15 to 2:30 p.m.). Panels on sexual orientation (9 to 10:30 a.m. Friday) and religion (10:45 a.m. to noon Friday) take place in Altgeld Hall 203.

Launched in 1994, MCTI brings together people from across campus to learn more about multiculturalism and to discuss how to weave its ideals into their curriculum.

Around 175 alumni of the institute have “transformed” more than 160 courses over the years. The enhanced syllabi help to attract a wider range of students, who then gain inclusive and diverse perspectives.

“It's had quite a big effect on instruction at NIU,” said Levin, who also is a professor of English. “Some of the activities have been incorporated into other courses we don't even know about.”

Multiculturalism is defined as the inclusion of scholarship, theory, concept and fact of cultures that historically have been under-represented in all educational arenas.

Task force leaders envision an enriched academic environment where faculty address multicultural perspectives in their teaching and curricula, accommodate the needs of a diverse student population and engage in activities that promote scholarship of multicultural curricula.

This year's participants, awarded $1,000 each, are Betty Birner, English; Sarah Blue, Geography; Thomas Bough, Music; Sabiha Daudi, Teaching and Learning; Teresa Fisher, Counseling, Adult and Higher Education; Barbara Fox, Accountancy; Mary Beth Henning, Teaching and Learning; Greg Long, Communicative Disorders; Linda Melin, Teaching and Learning; Pamela Nelson, Literacy Ecucation; Kathleen G. Rust, Elmhurst College; Eui-kyung Shin, Teaching and Learning; Stacey Short, Management; Debra Zahay, Marketing; and Jie Zhou, Computer Science.

“I'm impressed with the openness and the honesty with which participants approach the institute,” Levin said, “and with their continual eagerness to improve their teaching.”

For more information, call (815) 753-8557.

Popular NIU Liberace Jazztet earns
sixth year of foundation's funding

The NIU Liberace Jazztet will swing for a sixth consecutive year thanks to renewed funding from the Liberace Foundation for the Performing and Creative Arts.

Founded at the NIU School of Music in 2001 with a generous donation of $10,000 from the Liberace Foundation, the group has risen quickly to an international stature through performances at conferences and festivals around the globe.

Its annual provision climbed to $12,000 in 2003. Paul Bauer, director of the NIU School of Music, wrote the initial grant proposal.

“The continuing hard work of students, faculty and staff has paid off again,” Bauer said. “Successful renewal of funding is also due in part to the detailed work of staff member Lynn Slater, who completes and submits several required reports and packets of information throughout the year to the funding foundation.”

“The students we recruit to join this program are working real hard to keep the group really visible. The things we've done have been international,” said Ronald Carter, director of the Liberace Jazztet and of the jazz studies program in the NIU School of Music. “Also, because we're the only jazz group funded by the foundation, it gives them much more appeal, not only to lovers of classical music but also of jazz.”

Members of the Liberace Jazztet must be juniors, seniors or graduate students who are outstanding jazz performers and come with the recommendation of faculty. Graduate students benefit most because the School of Music provides them with enough additional responsibilities and salary to receive tuition waivers from the Graduate School.

Responsibilities include several hours of rehearsal each week and work with faculty mentors. Performing is key.

Last spring marked the Jazztet's debut in New York , playing a plum gig at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, the new Jazz at Lincoln Center facility in New York City . The performance – the first by a collegiate ensemble from outside New York – produced an enthusiastic response from the club manager, who extended an open invitation for return engagements.

The group played the Festival Jazz en Peru in 2004, and will perform by invitation Sunday, July 2, at the Iowa City Jazz Festival.

“On the Verge,” a CD of mostly original works, is available from the School of Music. Carter currently is seeking an executive producer to fund producation of a second disc recorded last year.

Visit http://www.niu.edu/music/current/ensembles/Liberace/index.shtml for more information.

In other external funding news, the George and Betty Dutton Foundation has extended its generosity for a sixth consecutive year through a $4,000 graduate assistantship.

Each year since 2000, the foundation has paid for graduate students in music who spend part of their time working with children in the Sycamore Public Schools and the rest of their hours in the School of Music.

The school recruits one or two graduate students: a string player who performs as a member of the NIU Philharmonic as the George & Betty Dutton Orchestral Chair and/or a piano student who provides accompanying support to NIU students and ensembles as the George and Betty Dutton Collaborative Pianist.

The Dutton grant pays their salaries, and the Graduate School waives tuition.

NIU Athletics offers summer sports camps

NIU Huskie Athletics is offering summer camps focusing on a variety of sports, including athletic training, baseball, basketball, football, golf, soccer, softball, volleyball, and wrestling. The camps are designed for youth of various ages from 6 to 18. NIU employees receive a discount on registrations.

For more detailed information and registration, visit http://www.niuhuskies.com and click on Camps, call (815) 753-5300 or e-mail sportscamps@niu.edu.

Student exhibits art at women's center

NIU Fine Arts student Carrie Boop is the featured artist at the DeKalb Area Women's Center Great Hall Exhibit Space during May.

Titled “Garden of Delight,” the exhibition is a body of work in pencil, oils, acrylic, graphite, pastels, ink and mixed media which reflects the artist's fascination with the plant kingdom.

The DAWC is open for public viewing from 7 to 9 p.m. Fridays, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. the first and third Saturdays and by appointment at (815) 758-1351. Attendees also are invited to walk through the Meditation Garden on the west side of the building, and get a “sneak preview” of the sesquicentennial mural by Randy Halverson which is in progress in the OnStage Gallery.

The DAWC Galleries are located at 1021 State Street in DeKalb, with the accessible lift entrance from the alley north of the building. Parking is provided one-half block south of the corner at State and 11th Streets.

Community School hosts brass band summer camp

Junior and senior high school brass players are invited to an intensive three-day camp this summer to work with some of the best brass teachers in the region at Brass Boot Camp. The camp is scheduled for Sunday, June 25, through Tuesday, June 27.

Players of tuba, French horn, trumpet, trombone, and euphonium (baritone) receive personal attention on improvement of technique, increased lip flexibility and endurance, production of a professional tone, solutions to intonation problems, the acquisition of fluency in all key signatures and expansion of playing range.

Camp director Thomas Bough is the director of the Huskie Marching Band and the University Band at NIU. Camp instructors include NIU School of Music faculty Paul Bauer, John Fairfield and Mark Ponzo.

Campers stay in NIU residence halls and enjoy the music facilities in the NIU Music Building. The camp is open to those who have completed grades 8 to 12.

In addition to Brass Boot Camp, NIU's College of Visual and Performing Arts offers summer camps in July in jazz, theatre and visual arts. More information is available online at www.niu.edu/extprograms or by calling (815) 753-1450.

Community School hosts visual arts summer camp

High school artists are invited to participate in exciting, diverse and creative art experiences this summer at the Visual Arts Experience. The camp is scheduled for the week of July 16.

Campers enjoy two daily in-depth studio sessions. Studio teachers encourage campers to be innovative as they experiment with new materials, techniques and ideas. Campers stay in NIU residence halls and use studio facilities in the Art Building.

Lynn Stockton returns as camp director. An award-winning art teacher at Jefferson High School in Rockford, Stockton has been involved with the camp for many years. An alumna of NIU's School of Art, she brings a wealth of teaching and artistic experience to the program.

In addition to studio work during the day, campers enjoy workshops conducted by artists. Evening activities include a night of performance art, open studio time and recreation. The camp is open to those who have completed grades 8 to 12.

More information is available online at www.niu.edu/extprograms or by calling (815) 753-1450. An early bird registration fee is available until June 1.

Alumni Association sponsors trip to Tutankhamun exhibition

NIU's Alumni Association is offering a private viewing Friday, Aug. 11, of “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” at the Field Museum in Chicago.

“Tutmania” is returning to the Field Museum for the first time in almost three decades. The 1977 Tutankhamun exhibit attracted crowds of 10,000 to 12,000 a day, with more than 1.35 million visitors overall.

According to the Chicago Tribune “Though the new Tut show will run two months longer here than the first one, the museum said far fewer people will get to see the new one because of more rigorous security and conservation measures taken to protect the artifacts. Those measures mean the exhibit will be shown in a space just one-fifth the size the 1977 show was presented in, limiting the number of people who can move through it.”

The Alumni Association has secured a limited number of tickets for this private viewing. The ticket price of $150 includes a reception and dinner, an exclusive viewing for NIU guests and complimentary valet parking.

Alumni Association plans autumn trip to China

Limited seats are available for the NIU Alumni Association's “The Wonders of China,” a trip scheduled for Sept. 8 to 19. The cost is $3,599.

This land-and-river tour will visit the cities of Beijing, Xian and Shanghai and include stops at Tiananmen Square, the Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City , the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs and the Tomb of Emperor Qun Shi Huangdi. The three-night Yangtze River cruise includes visits to Shibaozhai, Wushan and the Three Gorges Dam site.

For more information, visit www.myniu.com or call (815) 753-1512.

5-15-06