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 The budget plan for the coming year proposed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich includes more than $19 million for renovation and expansion of NIU's Stevens Building.
The governor’s fiscal 2008 budget recommendation announced last week also includes an increase of nearly $2 million in operating funds for NIU.
“We’re pleased with Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s budget proposal,” NIU President John Peters said. “We’re encouraged to see the governor recognizes the need for necessary capital improvements at NIU and universities across the state. Renovation of the Stevens Building has long been a top priority for NIU, and we’ve worked diligently to make it a top priority in Springfield as well.
“I look forward to working with members of the Illinois General Assembly as they further consider the governor’s budget request,” Peters added.
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 Chris Carger lives in a world of vivid colors, familiar characters, rich stories and, of course, endings.
Some are happy. Some are sad. Almost all, however, resonate with her in a way that touches her soul and moistens her eyes. Her anecdotes are tied to her favorite children’s books, and she’s quick to name their titles, their authors and their plots.
“The books themselves are just so beautiful,” says Carger, an associate professor in the Department of Literacy Education at Northern Illinois University. “I’d take the books home, sit on the couch and read them, and sometimes I’d just be in tears. My daughters used to tease me about it.”
But it’s the way that children relate with books that moves her, and sometimes surprises her, the most.
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 NIU’s invention man is at it again.
Chemistry Professor C.T. Lin, who has eight patents to his name, unveiled his latest creation recently in San Francisco.
Lin has developed a sensor that selectively changes color immediately upon detection of a toxic chemical agent, including chemical warfare agents, such as nerve and mustard gas.
“The sensor is fast, very sensitive, agent selective and specific, durable and low cost,” Lin said. “As an added benefit, a decontamination catalyst can be encapsulated in the sensor.”
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 Physicians serve internships and residencies and must pass the medical boards. Lawyers must pass the bar exam, and some work as judicial clerks, before arguing cases.
But what sort of universal capstone experience is or should be provided to, or required of, those educators who earn doctoral degrees in preparation for professional roles in the field?
The Carnegie Foundation aims to answer that question with the help of the NIU College of Education and 19 other U.S. universities.
Dean Christine Sorensen joined Jon Crawford and Teresa Wasonga, professors in the Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations, at a Carnegie-sponsored “orientation meeting” held Feb. 23 in New York City.
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 Michael W. Apple, an internationally renowned professor and author of books on educational reform, will speak Monday, March 19, at Northern Illinois University for the spring graduate colloquium.
Apple, the John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, speaks from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the Clara Sperling Sky Room of the Holmes Student Center.
The event is free and open to all faculty, students and the general public. Apple’s presentation is co-sponsored by the Graduate Colloquium Committee, the Department of Teaching and Learning and the Division of Art Education.
“Our faculty and our students are going to get such a great opportunity through this,” said Elizabeth Wilkins, an associate professor in Teaching and Learning. “His message is powerful, and his work stands on its own.”
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 Firefighters and local law enforcement got a hand from NIU while battling a recent Sycamore blaze and investigating its suspicious origins.
Shortly after arriving in the 300 block of South Avenue during the early hours of Sunday, March 4, officials began to suspect that the fire scene likely was also a crime scene. The bodies of two people believed to be the victims of a murder-suicide eventually were recovered.
Anticipating a complicated and lengthy investigation, they called upon an unlikely source for help: the NIU Convocation Center.
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 Entries have streamed in from top film schools across the country for the 7th annual Reality Bytes Student Documentary Film Festival at NIU.
The NIU Department of Communication will host the festival from Thursday, March 22, to Saturday, March 24. Admission is free, and all events are open to the public.
The festival will feature 21 documentary films. Entries have been received from students at numerous institutions, including NIU, Stanford University, New York University, Syracuse University and the universities of Michigan, North Texas, Florida, Oklahoma and North Carolina.
All films are shorts and range in length from seven to 30 minutes. Films included in the festival are as diverse as the schools they come from, with topics ranging from a documentary profiling a painter who is blind to an in-depth look at crystal methamphetamine addiction.
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 Membership in the Northern Star Hall of Fame grew to 58 last week with the induction of five new alums, including two from the NIU faculty.
Denise Schoenbachler, dean of the NIU College of Business, is considered a friend of the campus newspaper for conducting and delivering three market research studies in the last decade.
Lois Self, retired chair of the NIU Department of Communication, is another friend who led the university’s journalism faculty and served as executive secretary for the Northern Illinois Newspaper Association.
Schoenbachler and Self are among a class that includes a former White House correspondent, a former White House adviser and, perhaps, a thorn in the current White House’s side: the author of one of the nation’s most influential – and left-wing – political blogs.
The induction ceremony was held Satruday, March 3, at O'Learys Irish Pub and Grill in downtown DeKalb.
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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. -- MORE
The University Bookstore in the Holmes Student Center is closed for inventory through Wednesday, March 14. Regular store hours resume Thursday, March 15.
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.
NIU’s Student Financial Aid Office will move temporarily beginning Wednesday, March 14, to make room for a remodeling project.
The temporary location is Holmes Student Center Room 114, across from the Duke Ellington Ballroom and Capitol Room. Telephone numbers, e-mail and mailing addresses will remain the same for all areas.
For more information, and for project progress updates, check www.fa.niu.edu and click Contact Us. Completion of the remodeling is expected in August.
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.
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. -- MORE
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.
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. -- MORE
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.
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.
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. -- MORE
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.
For more information, visit www.vpa.niu.edu/museum or call (815) 753-1936. -- MORE
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.
Northern Public Radio, the broadcast service of NIU, hosts its annual spring membership campaign from March 24 to March 31 at the NIU Broadcast Center, 801 North First Street in DeKalb.
Volunteers are welcome to sign up for just a couple of hours or for multiple shifts throughout the week as their schedules and interests allow. Campaign hours vary by day. Learn more at www.northernpublicradio.org or e-mail ddrake@niu.edu to volunteer. -- MORE
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.
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.
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.
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. -- MORE
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