In Brief

Nobel Laureate Leon Lederman
to visit NIU for public lecture

Nobel Prize-winner Leon M. Lederman, director emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, will visit NIU for a public lecture from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Friday, March 23, in the Altgeld Auditorium.

The lecture, titled “Sputnik, Frogs and the Future of Science Education,” is free and open to the public. The event is hosted by the President’s Office, the Office of the Provost and the Department of Physics.

An internationally renowned high-energy physicist, Lederman holds an appointment as Pritzker Professor of Science at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He served as chairman of the State of Illinois Governor’s Science Advisory Committee and is a founder and the inaugural Resident Scholar at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, a 3-year residential public high school for the gifted.

Lederman was the director of Fermilab from 1979 to 1989. He is a founder and chairman emeritus of the Teachers Academy for Mathematics and Science, which was active in the professional development of primary school teachers in Chicago from 1990 to 2003.

Lederman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988. Other awards over his distinguished career have included the National Medal of Science (1965), the Elliot Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute (1976), the Wolf Prize in Physics (1982) and the Enrico Fermi Prize given by President Clinton in 1993.

Lifelong Learning Institute hosts
NIU Notables ‘Brown Bag’ lectures

The Lifelong Learning Institute will host a NIU Notables “Brown Bag” Lecture from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, March 14, in Holmes Student Center Room 505.

NIU Law Professor Guadalupe Luna will present “Anti-Immigration Municipal Codes: A Fractured Legal Template.”

DeKalb County Clerk and Recorder Sharon Holmes is the guest Wednesday, March 21, in HSC 505. Holmes will speak on “Elections and Voting: Report from the Frontlines” from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Bring a lunch, pick one up at the HSC Blackhawk Cafeteria or just come and listen. Both lectures are free and open to the public. For details, call (815) 753-5200.

Application deadline extended
until March 16 for spring MCTI

Tenure-track faculty, instructors and SPS are invited to apply by Friday, March 16, to participate in the Multi-Cultural Curriculum Transformation Institute the week of May 14.

Applications also are welcome from Institute graduates who participated before 2003.

During the Institute, participants receive information and advice on how to transform their courses to make them more inclusive. Workshops focus on race and ethnicity, gender, social class, religion and cultural diversity. Participants also hear from NIU students about their classroom experiences, and from Institute graduates who have successfully transformed their courses.

Professor Barbara Love, an internationally recognized authority on multi-cultural education, will present the plenary address and interact with the audience. Participants also will work together in small groups with task force members to discuss and to revise their individual courses.

Upon completion of their work, participants will receive a stipend of $1,000.

Application materials and more information about the Institute are available at http://www.niu.edu/mcti/institute.shtml, or by calling Kimberly Reuille at (815) 753-8557.

Kishwaukee Concert Band to play
familiar opera selections March 18

The Greater Kishwaukee Area Concert Band will present “Matinee at the Opera” at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 18, in the Boutell Memorial Concert Hall.

This concert will feature selections from several familiar operas, including “Phantom of the Opera,” complete with the scream. The concert is free, open to the public and accessible to all.

Commuter Appreciation Week
takes off March 19 at NIU

All students, faculty and staff are invited to learn about and share in the NIU commuter experience during Commuter Appreciation Week, scheduled from March 19 to 22.

Events will take place in the Collegia at Holmes Student Center, located in the lower basement area.

Throughout the week commuters can express their identity by creating “vanity license plates” which will be used to form a collage display in the Collegia. Coffee Breaks featuring Gas Card Bingo will be held from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, March 20, and from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 21.

Commuters are invited to leave the brown bag at home Wednesday, March 21, and enjoy a free soup and sandwich lunch compliments of Commuter & Non-Traditional Student Services.

The week’s festivities will end Thursday, March 22, by celebrating famous commuters in books and movies. Commuters are invited to the Collegia to share movie clips, books or trivia featuring commuters. Complimentary popcorn will be served. Cards and envelopes also will be available that day to create notes to students, faculty or staff members to thank them for being commuter-friendly.

Commuter and Non-Traditional Student Services, located in the basement of the Holmes Student Center, Room 023, is a resource for commuter, non-traditional and off-campus students enrolled at NIU. A featured commuter service for students and faculty is the Commuter Car Pool Connections at www.niu.edu/comnontrad.

Christian prayer group
to meet for monthly lunch

The NIU Christian Faculty and Staff Prayer Group meets from noon to 12:50 p.m. the third Tuesday of each month in the East Room of Blackhawk Cafeteria. Bring your own lunch or purchase one there.

March’s date is Tuesday, March 20.

‘Chicago Hand Bookbinders’ travels
to NIU Art Museum Hall Case Galleries

The NIU Art Museum will host “High and Low: Chicago Hand Bookbinders” in its Hall Case Galleries from March 20 through April 21. The public is invited to an opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 20.

“High and Low” features original bindings and book works by 14 artists belonging to the Chicago Hand Bookbinders group. It offers strong, unique craftwork in both traditional binding techniques and in experimental formats classified as Artists Books. This exhibition is the second in the Museum’s series of artist made books.

Chicago Hand Bookbinders was founded in 1978 to promote awareness, understanding and appreciation of handmade books. Members are amateur, student and professional binders as well as anyone interested in the book arts. They aim to learn from one another through sharing skills and techniques, to educate the public through exhibitions and demonstrations and to encourage the highest standards in the craft of bookbinding.

Each year, members participate in a themed exhibition.

The NIU Art Museum’s Hall Case Galleries are located on the first floor, west end of Altgeld Hall. The Hall Case Galleries are open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday. Exhibitions are always free. 

Exhibitions are funded in part by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, the Friends of the NIU Art Museum and the Arts Fund 21. For more information, visit our www.vpa.niu.edu/museum or call (815) 753-1936.

Nine national artists ‘Draw’
on uncertainty at Art Museum

The NIU Art Museum will host “The Uncertainty Principle: Drawing in the Golden Age of Worry” from March 20 through May 12. The public is invited to an opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 20.

A drawing symposium featuring artists Charles LaBelle, Shona Macdonald, Judith Burns McCrea, Geoffrey Todd Smith, Deb Sokolow and Chris Uphues is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, March 24, in Altgeld 315.

“The Uncertainty Principle” is composed of drawings by nine artists and is guest-curated by Karen Brown, a drawing professor in the NIU School of Art.

The NIU Art Museum’s South Galleries are located on the first floor, west end of Altgeld Hall. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and by appointment for group tours. Exhibitions and artist talks are always free. 

Exhibitions are funded in part by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, the Friends of the NIU Art Museum and the Arts Fund 21. The drawing symposium is sponsored by the NIU School of Art Fine Arts Studio Division and the Visiting Artist/Scholar Fund.

For more information, visit www.vpa.niu.edu/museum or call (815) 753-1936.

Geography organizes presentations
on global climate warming

The geography department has organized a series of public presentations and discussions revolving around the recent International Panel on Climate Change report on global climate warming.

The series of presentations by NIU scholars, with question-and-answer sessions and discussion, begins at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 22, in the Montgomery Hall Auditorium with an overview of the IPCC report. NIU Presidential Science Adviser Gerald Blazey and Geography professors David Goldblum and Jie Song will be presenters.

Symposiums on other climate-change related topics also will be held on March 29, April 5, April 12, April 19, April 26 and May 3. All of the events will be held from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Montgomery Hall Auditorium.

Mobile drivers’ facility
coming March 26 to HSC

Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White’s mobile drivers’ facility will return to the NIU campus for its third consecutive year. Officials will set up a “mini facility” once a month outside Diversions Show Lounge.

The facility allows students, faculty and staff of NIU, along with the public, to get driver’s licenses or state IDs. This would include new, renewals and replacements. In addition, staff will renew license plate stickers, register applicants to vote and sign interested parties up for the new Organ Donor Registry.

March’s date is Monday, March 26. The hours of operation are 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Operating Staff banquet
rescheduled for May 10

Schedule conflicts have changed the date for the 38th Annual Operating Staff Service Awards Banquet.

The event will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, May 10, in the Holmes Student Center Duke Ellington Ballroom. A cash bar will open at 5:30 p.m.

Donate Life Illinois: Re-register for organ, tissue donation

April is National Donate Life Month, a time to remember the 4,700 Illinoisans and 95,000 people nationwide who are awaiting lifesaving transplants. Are you re-registered in Illinois’ new organ/tissue donor registry?

Illinois approved a new law Jan. 1, 2006, creating a new donor registry that eliminates the need for additional consent from family members or loved ones for you to be an organ/tissue donor when you die. The new registry ultimately will save many more lives, but people must re-register to make their donor status valid.

Donate Life Illinois makes it easy with a 30-second online process. Even if you’ve signed the back of your driver’s license, what counts is your registration in the new registry.

Donate Life Illinois (www.IAmAreYou.org) is a coalition of agencies across the state working toward registering 3.5 million Illinoisans in the state’s new registry by April. The campaign is part of a national effort to increase to 100 million the number of Americans who have taken action to become donors in their states.

It takes 30 seconds to re-register and possibly provide someone with a second chance at life.

3-13-07