June 4, 2007, Northern Today Abridged

Project MY VOICE aims to improve future
for youths with developmental disabilities

A three-year project between NIU and Indian Prairie School District 204 aims to empower youths with disabilities to become their own advocates toward “happy and self-sufficient lives.”

Toni Van Laarhoven and Sarah Johnston-Rodriguez, professors in the Department of Teaching and Learning, and Traci Van Laarhoven-Myers, a special education teacher in the school district, are co-directors of Project MY VOICE.

Funding comes from a $340,000 grant from the Illinois Council on Developmental Disabilities.

“Because of the fact that these students have cognitive impairments, people just automatically assume, ‘Well, we know what’s best for you,’ and then they kind of carve out their future for them,” said Van Laarhoven, who joined the NIU College of Education in 2001.

“There’s a big push with legislation now that’s saying that we do need to make sure students have a voice in their IEPs (individualized education plans) – that they do have the opportunity to have some self-determination and self-advocacy when it comes to their future outcomes.”

MY VOICE – the acronym stands for Multimedia for Youth to Voice Outcomes Individually Created for Empowerment – will work to help these students ages 16 to 21 to express their needs and their dreams at meetings where parents and educators typically make such decisions.

Van Laarhoven and Johnston-Rodriguez will work directly with pre-service teachers in the special education curriculum and with educational personnel and students in the high school programs. Van Laarhoven-Myers will coordinate activities between Indian Prairie’s in-service teachers, related service personnel, students and parents.

Work began June 1 to develop the tool kits and training materials for pre-service teachers, in-service educators and parents. Training sessions for teachers and pre-service teachers will start in August, and identification of priority students follows immediately in the fall.

In the end, the trio will create a model and instructional guide for nationwide dissemination.

Although the key word in the project’s full name is “multimedia” – students will speak directly to video cameras about what they want from life – the activities go far beyond creating video testimonials.

Participating students also explore options that are available to achieve their dreams, evaluate the pros and cons to make informed decisions and finally choose goals that reflect their dreams and preferences. They then can “show” everyone what they would like to accomplish with their lives.

The need is huge, Van Laarhoven said.

“We can really do creative things for kids who maybe aren’t able to speak for themselves. Through technology, students will have the ability to get what they want across to teachers, parents and the community,” she said.

“Teaching the students how to identify and communicate what it is they really want to do with their lives is the self-determination piece,” she added, “but then they have to tell people and develop a plan of action. That’s the self-advocacy piece.”

Van Laarhoven’s own history with such activities seems to guarantee success.

“When I was teaching high school, we tried to get our students to come to their own IEPs, and they froze. They couldn’t say what they wanted to,” she said. “We used to videotape the kids to have them practice, and it was amazing how well they could do when we videotaped. We’d say, ‘Look at this! You can tell everyone what you want out of life!’ ”

Love your robot as yourself?
New book by NIU’s David Gunkel
raises questions about ethics, technology

In the science fiction film classic, “2001: A Space Odyssey,” a perfectly brilliant computer becomes an unemotional killer. Ah, the stuff of science fiction, right?

A new book by NIU Communication Professor David Gunkel might make you think otherwise.

The book is in fact titled, “Thinking Otherwise.” In it, Gunkel, who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy, investigates the ethical challenges, complications and responsibilities that arise from our interactions with increasingly more sophisticated forms of artificial intelligence, from computers to robots.

Ethics is typically understood as being concerned with questions of responsibility for and in the face of an “other,” presumably another person. But Gunkel notes that this cornerstone of modern ethical thought has been significantly challenged, most visibly by animal rights activists but also increasingly by those at the cutting edge of computer technology, intelligent systems, virtual realities and cybernetics.

Recent technological advances introduce the possibility of ethical responsibility toward machines – and vice versa.

“The book in a sense is about the ethics of the future. We’re just at the threshold of this becoming an issue,” Gunkel says. “For the average computer user, these ethical questions aren’t an immediate concern, but they are percolating in circles of cutting-edge technology, for people working in the areas of artificial intelligence and robotics, for instance.”

Science fiction writers and filmmakers have been addressing such ethical dilemmas for some time, Gunkel says, in such works as “Blade Runner,” “The Matrix,” and “Battlestar Galactica,” as well as in the 1968 epoch, “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

“For my money right now, the people really thinking through the moral responsibilities of machines are the science fiction writers,” Gunkel says. But he also notes how these ethical dilemmas are filtering into the contemporary culture of technology.

Most online interactions are not people to people, but rather people to machine or machine to machine, Gunkel says. Advanced computer systems are already making autonomous decisions that have ethical implications in such areas as privacy and finance.

An even more direct example of this new ethical awareness comes from South Korea, where the government is working to create ethical codes that would prevent humans from abusing robots and robots from abusing humans.

Geared primarily for a scholarly audience and technology professionals, “Thinking Otherwise” was published in April by Purdue University Press and has been well received. It is one of the first scholarly books devoted to the ethical treatment and moral standing of artificial intelligence, robots and information systems.

“This erudite and innovative book totally reorients our thinking away from binary logic,” says Clifford Christians, the Charles H. Sandage Distinguished Professor of Research and Professor of Communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

“The philosophical dimensions of information and communication technology have never been outlined better,” Christians adds. “(Gunkel’s) critique of digital reason and his machine-as-other turn communication ethics on its head.”

While “Thinking Otherwise” outlines the ethical debates, its author doesn’t attempt to provide definitive answers.

“I try to frame the dilemmas,” Gunkel says. “But you’re not going to find the 10 commandments of robots’ rights in this book.”

More information on author David Gunkel and his new book, “Thinking Otherwise,” is available online at http://thinkingotherwise.org/ and http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/Books%20Pages/ThinkingOtherwise.asp.

NIU’s Judy Santacaterina featured
in documentary on Italian Americans

Judy Santacaterina, an adviser in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and longtime coach of the NIU forensics team, appears in a new documentary tracing 150 years of the Italian-American experience in Chicago.

WTTW Channel 11 will air “And They Came To Chicago: The Italian American Legacy,” narrated by actor Joe Mantegna, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 5, and at 5:30 p.m. Sunday, June 10.

The documentary, which premiered on NBC Channel 5 in late May, examines how the distinct regional customs and traditions of early settlers laid the foundation for burgeoning Italian enclaves in Chicago and helped steer the course of the city’s history.

Executive producer Gia Marie Amella spent two hours interviewing Santacaterina about her grandmother, Amabile Santacaterina, a popular Italian-language broadcaster in Chicago from the 1930s to the 1960s.

“After coming to Chicago from Venice, Italy, my grandparents became very involved in the South Side Italian-American community of Roseland,” Judy Santacaterina says. “My grandmother started reading copy for the radio and that grew into her own show, the ‘Italian Hour.’ She was like the Wally Phillips of the Italian-American community.”

Amabile’s program focused on culture and occasionally featured celebrity guests. “I have a photograph of my grandmother at the radio station interviewing Rocky Marciano,” Santacaterina says. “I always wonder what the heck she was asking him about because she didn’t know much about boxing.”

In 1980, as a student at NIU, Santacaterina conducted her master’s thesis on her grandmother’s work in broadcast. In her documentary interview, she recounts highlights from Amabile’s career, including her contributions to the war effort. During World War II, the U.S. government recruited Amabile and her husband to make propaganda recordings that were broadcast in the Italian countryside.

The documentary also pays tribute to a number of local luminaries, past and present, including the University of Chicago’s Enrico Fermi, whose pioneering work in nuclear physics garnered him the Nobel Prize; Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, one of the nation’s most influential religious leaders; and Mother Frances Cabrini, the first American to achieve sainthood.

More about the documentary, including a trailer with a clip of Santacaterina’s interview, can be found online at www.modiomedia.com/projects/atctc/index.html.

NIU geologist helping to shed light
on inner workings of our planet

NIU geologist Mark Frank is a member of an international team of scientists who recently published findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that will assist researchers for years to come in their study of our planet’s internal structure and composition.

“Researchers don’t really know that much about the interior of Earth, or any planetary body for that matter,” Frank said.

“One way scientists learn about Earth’s inner composition is by studying large earthquakes, which release significant quantities of energy that are transmitted away from the quake’s focus by seismic waves,” he added. “As they pass through the interior, the waves experience changes in velocity, which indicate changes in density of material or composition.”

Scientists use observations of seismic waves to create laboratory models of the planet’s interior. “A complete understanding of the layering within the deep Earth requires a correlation of the observed seismic data with experimentally derived values,” Frank said.

The correlation is critically dependent on the accuracy of pressure measurements up to 364 gigapascals, a pressure at the center of the Earth at high temperature. Large uncertainties in the currently used pressure scales hamper scientific inquiry, however.

The PNAS study provided new compression data for gold, platinum, solid neon and sodium chloride that will help researchers address the ambiguities. The researchers also devised “thermal equations of state” for those materials. The equations compute how the materials will shrink under increasing pressure.

“We’re helping to create a set of standards for scientists who work in this field,” Frank said. “Ultimately this will advance our understanding of fundamental high-pressure phenomena and the chemistry and physics of the Earth’s interior.”

Other members of the research team included scientists from the Geophysical Laboratory at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the University of Tokyo and the University of Chicago.

The experimental work was performed at Argonne National Laboratory’s Advanced Photon Source and is supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the State of Illinois and the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Construction snarls campus, town

As the old saying goes, Illinois has only two seasons: winter and construction. The latter is upon us.

This summer, roadwork will close various streets on and around campus for extended periods of time. A map outlining those projects can be found on the university’s Web site.

Roadwork that might send faculty, staff students and visitors scrambling for a detour on campus includes:

• College Avenue reconstruction and bridge repairs through Aug. 15. After four decades of patchwork repairs, College Avenue will be completely rebuilt with a new base, asphalt, sidewalks, lighting and more. The road will be closed from Castle Drive east to Woodley Road throughout the project. The bridge over the Kishwaukee River also will be resurfaced and remodeled as part of the project.
• Lincoln Drive North resurfacing through Aug. 15. The brutal cold and freeze/thaw cycles of last winter took a serious toll on Lincoln Drive North, with numerous large pot holes developing that resulted in the need for extensive resurfacing of the roadway.
• Castle Drive resurfacing. Late in the summer, as work on College Avenue is completed, Castle Drive will close for resurfacing. The project is expected to take about a week and will be completed before the return of students.
• Parking lots X and W paving. These two gravel parking lots, located northeast of the residence halls, will be upgraded from gravel to asphalt. No specific dates for the work have yet been set, but they are to be completed before students return in the fall.

The inconveniences caused by those projects are aggravated by roadwork elsewhere in DeKalb.

Route 38, from roughly Pearl Street to Carroll Avenue, is a maze of construction barricades and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

The City of DeKalb is currently in the process of replacing water mains along Route 38. When that work concludes in late June, the Illinois Department of Transportation will step in and begin replacing the bridge over the Kishwaukee River.

Unlike the College Avenue bridge work, this is a complete rebuild and will take about one year. During that time, Route 38 will be reduced to one lane of traffic in each direction.

A bit further west, work on widening Annie Glidden Road has been under way since March and is expected to continue until the end of October.

As if all that wasn’t enough, six of the city’s seven railroad crossings are currently closed for reconstruction that is expected to last until Saturday.

Drawing from life
Students in NIU summer course draw,
paint scenes from Field Museum

Summer Fridays are not always about sneaking off to the zoo, the ballgame or the cottage in Wisconsin.

For two dozen college students, teachers, sculptors, book illustrators, glass blowers and artists of all sorts, summer Fridays are special for another reason. Those are days spent at the Field Museum with pencils, paint brushes and possibilities.

For nearly 30 years, NIU art professor Yale Factor has taught a summer course in painting, drawing and illustration with the Field serving as his classroom.

“The first day, I take them for a tour behind the scenes in areas that are not open to the general public. Only 2 percent of the displays are open to the general public,” Factor says. “I introduce them to the collections managers and curators, and then they can paint or draw at any place in the museum that is open to the general public. I wander around and help them.”

Born and raised in Chicago, Factor worked as a scientific illustrator at the Field from 1977 to 1978, the year he came to DeKalb to teach. His love of the museum, combined with his desire to keep that connection alive, spawned the unique summer course.

Created that same year, “it’s been a hit ever since.”

His students – this summer’s crop is split evenly between undergrads and master’s degree candidates – bring a broad range of experience and talent.

“Some are just developing their craft. Some are really ready to show in a gallery. The students do learn a lot from each other,” he says. “This is not something that they usually ever consider as feasible or possible – that the museum is kind of open for this opportunity. Here’s a chance to be in front of one the displays for weeks at a time and to really study it.”

Some of the finished works are of the building’s architecture. Some are of the displays. Others are of the visitors.

“I’m very pleased,” he says. “I had one grad student making paintings of the reflections of display cases, looking through the cases, multiple images. That’s something that intrigues me.”

A handful of Factor’s alums have gone on to find employment at the Field as scientific illustrators or in preparing the displays. Others have become museum members.

And after 30 years, Factor says, the NIU summer students are practically a museum display themselves.

“There are different school groups coming in – little kids – and these children are coming around kidding our students. ‘Are you an artist?’ We’re part of the summer festivities. The NIU students are very much a part of the summer fun for everyone visiting the museum.”

Faculty Development, Graduate School honor
four TAs for outstanding teaching

NIU’s Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center and Graduate School have honored four graduate teaching assistants for outstanding work in the classroom.

The Graduate School held a reception in April at the Holmes Student Center Regency Room to recognize the recipients of all graduate student awards including outstanding TAs. Each outstanding graduate teaching assistant was presented with a certificate by Provost Raymond Alden and a plaque by Murali Krishnamurthi, director of Faculty Development.

Faculty Development established the awards for TAs in 2004.

Here is a closer look at the winners.

Jason Jividen, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science, has been independently teaching courses for the past two years. His course responsibilities have included POLS150 Democracy in America, POLS251 Introduction to Political Philosophy, and POLS350 Classical and Medieval Political Philosophy.

In 2002, he received the Finkelstein Award, the department’s teaching award for graduate students, in recognition of his extensive and successful teaching experience, impressive quantitative and qualitative student evaluations, uniformly excellent faculty reviews based on class observations and unsolicited and highly laudatory remarks from students about his teaching performance.

According to one of Jividen’s nominators, the most empirical evidence that he succeeds in interesting students in the subject matter he teaches is that many students wanted to continue studying political philosophy as a result of taking his courses.

Jennifer Ann Lichamer, a master’s student in Public Health, has been a teaching assistant in the NIU School of Allied Health Professions for courses including AHLS301 Clinical Immunology and Serology, AHLS336 Clinical Microbiology, AHLS337 Parasitology and Mycology and AHLS470B Clinical Microbiology.

Her responsibilities have included primary instruction for some courses, co-teaching courses with other faculty, supervising lab sections, conducting online case studies, grading and serving as the manager of the Clinical Lab Sciences.

One of her nominators has mentioned that Lichamer “is an exemplary student, mentor, leader and educator. She has the critical thinking skills so important to working in the Clinical Laboratory Science profession. She has the organizational skills that allow her to work on several tasks at once and get them done. She does all this while completing graduate courses, not to mention being a wife and mother of two children.”

Rachel Moreno, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Biological Sciences, has been the teaching assistant for two different and challenging courses over several years. She has been a TA for BIOS308 Genetics for six semesters and BIOS305 Biology of Land Plants for three semesters and has been responsible for preparing laboratory materials and experiments, lecturing to recitation/lab sections, conducting laboratories, supervising individual students and lab groups and grading quizzes and laboratory notebooks.

Moreno was independently nominated by four separate faculty members in Biological Sciences because of her exemplary performance as a TA.

According to one of her four nominators, “Rachel has gone far beyond the normal expectations for teaching assistants. She has developed a Web site that students could use to receive information and help, and on her own compiled a series of guides for other TAs running and analyzing the labs. She has received excellent reviews from students and has taken on the role of mentor and guide for other graduate students.”

Kelley Wezner, a Ph.D. student in the Department of English, is a teaching assistant for First-Year English Composition and Introduction to Literature classes for the past five years. She has handled numerous other responsibilities such as undergraduate student adviser, research assistant, First-Year Composition Committee members and Graduate Studies Committee member in the English department.

Her students often mentioned that her feedback on their written work was extremely useful and that her class was the best they had ever taken. She also received the Graduate Student Assistant Award for Excellence in Teaching FYComp in 2004 as well as Mortar Board’s Recognition for Excellence in Teaching in 2005 and 2006.

One of Wezner’s nominators mentioned that in his 26 years of teaching he had “never seen a graduate student as competent in so many aspects of educational process, with expertise and experience in curriculum, policy, research, scholarship, professional service, ethics, methods, advising and assessment.”

Procurement Services explains
forward-rolling of purchase orders

As fiscal year 2007 comes to a close, some purchase orders might need to be rolled forward to fiscal year 2008.

Following are the parameters that Procurement Services and the General Accounting office will use to decide which purchase orders will be rolled forward and which will be closed out.

If there are any purchase orders that do not meet these parameters and need to be rolled forward, the General Accounting office needs to receive a list by Thursday, July 12, to roll them forward. After that date, and without any other directions from your department, the decisions to roll forward or close orders will be made by Procurement Services and the General Accounting staff.

All purchase orders that are rolled forward will be paid out of FY08 funds.

PARAMETERS FOR ROLL FORWARD

• All purchase orders with General Revenue funds will be closed in their entirety. These will be re-written as FY08 purchase orders and paid out of FY08 funding as needed after the lapse period.
• All open orders, regardless of purchase order date or dollar amount, will be closed in their entirety unless otherwise specified.
• All purchase orders dated prior to March 1, 2007, for any amount will be closed in their entirety unless otherwise specified.
• Purchase orders dated March 1, 2007, or later for a total of $1,999.99 or less will be closed in their entirety unless otherwise specified.
• All purchase orders dated March 1, 2007, or later for a total of $2,000 or more will be reviewed and then closed and/or rolled forward where appropriate unless otherwise specified.
• All purchase orders for equipment, construction, 03 funding or leases (without 253200 funding) will be rolled forward unless otherwise specified.
• Any purchase orders that have account 253200 funding will be individually reviewed, closed and/or rolled forward by Procurement Services. Procurement also will contact the appropriate person to discuss these.
• Purchase order rollover occurs during the last full week in July, and is coordinated by Procurement Services and Accounting.
• Departments are responsible for notifying Procurement or Accounting by Thursday, July 12, of purchase order balances that need to be rolled forward.

Direct any questions to Susan Doubler, Procurement Services, via e-mail at sdoubler@niu.edu or at (815) 753-1675.

Kudos

Gaylen Kapperman, professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning and longtime coordinator of the NIU College of Education’s Programs in Vision, has won the Paul Kersenbrock Humanitarian Award from Doane College.

The annual award is given in memory of Paul Dean Kersenbrock, a member of the Class of 1963. It is presented to a worthy Doane alumnus who, in the judgment of the Alumni Council, distinguishes himself or herself by extraordinary, unselfish dedication and service to others in his/her work and lifestyle.

Kapperman graduated magna cum laude from Doane in 1967 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and German and a secondary teaching certificate. He returned to his alma mater in Crete, Neb., during the weekend of May 18 to collect his honor.

Last December, Kapperman was named as a winner of a Centennial Medal from the Chicago Lighthouse for People Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired. One hundred winners were chosen in 2006 to mark the Lighthouse’s 100th year.

* * *

NIU Physics Professor Michel van Veenendaal published a research report recently in Physical Review Letters. It was his third publication in the elite physics journal in a matter of just 13 months.

The most recent publication, with co-author Ian McNulty of the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory, predicts the possibility of doing a new type of spectroscopy using shaped X-ray nano-beams.

Van Veenendaal says theory predicts the potential of doing spectroscopy with circular-shaped beams that carry an orbital angular momentum – so the beams, in effect, turn around in space.

Van Veenendaal is a theoretical physicist. He serves as deputy director of the NIU Institute for NanoScience, Engineering and Technology.

NIU Athletic Board seeks faculty, staff opinions in survey

To provide a world-class experience for NIU’s student-athletes and members of the faculty and staff, the NIU Athletic Board is asking for participation in a brief online survey.

Visit http://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/d6eag298ea and answer the questions as they pertain to your interests in NIU intercollegiate athletics. The survey should take only two or three minutes to complete.

NIU Art Museum opens cases to local non-profit organizations

This summer, in the spirit of the “Museum without Walls,” the NIU Art Museum offers its prominent location to assist other non-profit arts organizations and museums in making more public their own programming and accomplishments.

Eight organizations will be represented in “Community Windows” by posters in the NIU Art Museum’s Hall Case Gallery in Altgeld Hall through Saturday, Aug. 11.

The DeKalb County Community Foundation has generously funded the creation of a professionally designed poster display stemming from a grant proposal authored by the NIU Art Museum. NIU’s Media Services Imaging Production Studio worked with each organization to design a poster with the option to augment their displays with small objects. 

This year’s eight organizations were chosen for their location, range of offerings and outreach to the people of DeKalb County: DeKalb Municipal Band (DeKalb), Egyptian Theatre (DeKalb), Kishwaukee Valley Heritage Society and Museum (Genoa), Malta Historical and Genealogical Society Museum (Malta), Marie Louis Olmstead Museum (Somonauk), Midwest Museum of Natural History (Sycamore), NIU Community School of the Arts (DeKalb) and the Stone Mill Museum (Sandwich).

The NIU Art Museum’s Hall Case Gallery is located on the first floor, west end, of Altgeld Hall. The “Community Windows” poster display may be viewed on weekdays whenever Altgeld Hall is open. The Rotunda, North and South galleries are closed for the summer.

For more information, call (815) 753-1936.

DeKalb Public Library joins NIU for two pop-up book workshops

The NIU Art Museum will partner with the DeKalb Public Library to offer two children’s pop-up book and card workshops as part of this summer’s DeKalb County Passport to Adventure program.

NIU Art Museum Education Coordinator Jess Witte will conduct the approximately one-hour workshops in the library’s conference room.

The first workshop will be offered at 3 p.m. Tuesday, June 12, for children ages 6 to10. Children younger than 8 must be accompanied by an adult. The second workshop will run at 3 p.m. Tuesday, June 26, for ages 8 to 15.

Space is limited, so registration at the library’s youth desk is required at (815) 756-9568.

The DeKalb County Passport to Adventure is a free program sponsored by the DeKalb County Historical and Genealogical Society and the DeKalb County Community Foundation that encourages families to visit the many museums, cultural centers and archives throughout the county.

More information on Passport to Adventure can be found at the DeKalb Library’s youth desk and www.dekalbcountypassport.org. The DeKalb Public Library is located at 309 Oak Street in DeKalb.

Retirement party scheduled for IASBO’s Barbara Koca

A reception to honor Barbara Koca, who is retiring from NIU after 30 years of service, is scheduled for 1 to 3:30 p.m. Monday, June 18.

The reception takes place at the Illinois ASBO/NIU Professional Development Center in the Henry Yankow Board Room.

NIU Community School offers summer camp for vocal youth

Young voices fill the air this summer in a new day camp offered by the NIU Community School of the Arts.

The CSA Choral Camp is for children ages 8 to 13 and meets the week of June 18. The camp is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and concludes with a final concert for family and friends in the Concert Hall of the Music Building. Campers bring a packed lunch each day and receive a T-shirt.

Campers are assigned to choirs by age and rehearse with their choir twice each day. In addition, they attend classes in singing, drumming, movement, reading music and playing the piano. Each day, a guest performer will share his or her talents with the group.

The camp director is Mary Lynn Doherty, who is on the faculty at NIU, where she teaches music education courses. She was the associate conductor of the Chicago Choir Academy, a charter school in Chicago, and has taught choirs all across the Midwest.

She brings a wealth of experience and talent to the camp and is joined by two well-known local choral conductors, Travis Erikson of DeKalb High School and Brian Kowalski of Kaneland Middle School.

For more information about this camp or about the many other arts opportunities for children and adults at the community school this summer, call (815) 753-1450. More information is available online at www.niu.edu/extprograms.

Nehring Gallery to host ‘Civil Rights’ exhibition

The Nehring Gallery, a facility of the DeKalb Park District, will host “Civil Rights: Making and Remembering History” throughout the month of June.

The exhibition aims to call attention to the individuals, groups and especially students who have affected change in working toward advocating and protecting civil rights.

The exhibition is comprised of an introduction to the Chicano Movement, documents from the NIU Libraries’ African-American Special Collection and the sixth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Community Celebration Traveling Gallery.

Gallery visitors have the opportunity to vote on their favorite Traveling Gallery entries at the exhibition.

West Chicago Museum Education Coordinator Sara Phalen curated and prepared the introduction to the Chicano Movement.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Community Celebration Traveling Gallery is comprised of literary and artistic entries completed by DeKalb-area students and is a by-product of the collaborative efforts from a number of organizations in the DeKalb-Sycamore community.

This year’s sponsors include New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, DeKalb High School, 1360 WLBK, National Bank and Trust of Sycamore, A Place to Stand and One Body in Christ. The wooden display cases that debut in the “Civil Rights” exhibition are the result of a generous DeKalb County Community Foundation grant for permanent fixtures for the gallery.

Admission is free (donations are greatly appreciated) and the gallery is accessible to all. The Nehring Gallery is located at 111 S. Second Street on the second floor of the Nehring Center. Free parking is available in the public lots behind the building.

Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays, 1 to 5 p.m. Saturdays and by appointment for tours. For more information, contact the gallery at (815) 758-6363
and leave a message or visit www.nehringgallery.org.

Community School to host Brass Boot Camp for teens

Junior and senior high school brass players are invited this summer to learn from some of the best brass teachers in the region. Brass Boot Camp is scheduled for the week of July 8.

Professor Tom Bough, director of the camp, also is director of the Huskie Marching Band and the University Band at NIU. Assisting as teachers during the week are NIU brass faculty, including Mark Ponzo, Paul Bauer and John Fairfield, as well as NIU music students.

Throughout the week, 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.

Campers sleep and eat in residence halls on campus and enjoy the music facilities in the NIU Music Building. The camp is open to those who have graduated from grades 8 to 12.

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

Employee Wellness to host preventative health screening

The Regency Room of the Holmes Student Center is the site of a preventative health screening for the faculty, staff, their families and friends Tuesday, Aug. 14.

Life Line Screening screens the carotid arteries in the neck to determine if you are at risk for stroke. Up to 75 percent of all strokes are linked to carotid artery blockage. Screenings of the arteries of the legs are offered to check for peripheral artery disease, which is linked to heart disease.

A third test is performed for aneurysms in the aortic vessel of the abdomen. Life Line also offers a bone density screening to test for early detection of osteoporosis.

These non-invasive and completely painless ultrasound screenings take about 10 minutes each. Each of the three vascular tests is offered for $45. The osteoporosis test is $35. A complete vascular screening (three tests) costs $109; all four tests are $129.

New blood tests now are available as well: glucose (blood sugar to test for diabetes) and a complete lipid panel (LDL, HDL and triglycerides). All are conducted with a finger-stick blood test. Results are available in 10 minutes. The glucose costs $25 and the complete lipid panel is $45. Call for package pricing with vascular screenings.

Pre-registration is required. Call (800) 324-1851 for appointments and more information.

6-4-07