March 26, 2007, Northern Today Abridged
Patton named new men's basketball coach
Veteran head coach Ricardo Patton has been named the 26th men's basketball head coach in NIU history, Associate Vice President/Director of Athletics Jim Phillips announced last week.
Patton, who led Colorado to new heights in 11-plus seasons at the helm of the Buffaloes' men's basketball program, joins the Huskies after averaging nearly 17 wins per season and taking CU to six postseason berths, including a pair of NCAA appearances, between 1995-96 and 2006-07. Colorado advanced to postseason play in three of the last five seasons.
"To be certain, I am absolutely thrilled to introduce Ricardo Patton as our new men's basketball coach," Phillips said. "This is a historic hire for Northern Illinois University basketball, to bring not only someone with his level of coaching success and experience, but someone who will exemplify our core values and provide our student-athletes with a world-class experience."
Patton, who finished his CU tenure as the second-winningest coach in Colorado basketball history, announced in October that the 2006-07 campaign would be his last at the school.
In joining the Huskies, the Tennessee native said that he was impressed with the potential of the Northern Illinois program.
"In coaching, you look for an opportunity where you think you have a chance to be one of the best teams in the league year in and year out," Patton said. "After meeting Jim Phillips and President Peters, there was no question in my mind that Northern Illinois University is committed to being the best team in its conference and looking each year to play well into March. That is an opportunity every coach wants. I see no reason for our program not to reach new heights."
In all, Patton spent 14 seasons at Colorado. He arrived in Boulder as an assistant coach to Joe Harrington in 1993 and took over head coaching duties on Jan. 16, 1996. He was promoted to head coach on March 5 of that same season, just prior to the 1996 Big Eight Conference Tournament, and went on to compile 184 victories. His teams won 18 or more games six times and collected 15 or more wins in eight seasons. Of 11 18-plus win seasons in Colorado men's basketball history, Patton-coached teams claimed six of them, along with three of the school's four 20-win campaigns. His 2006-07 Buffs' roster included eight freshmen, making it the youngest team in school history.
Patton led the Buffaloes to their first NCAA Tournament berth since 1969 in 1996-97, his first full season as head coach, behind All-American and future NBA star Chauncey Billups, who Patton recruited to Boulder as a CU assistant. The 1996-97 team set a school-record with 22 victories, including a win in the NCAA tourney over a Bobby Knight-coached Indiana team, earned a second-place finish in the Big 12 Conference with an 11-5 record and broke into the rankings for the first time in 25 years.
He returned to the NCAA Tournament with his 2002-03 CU team, whose accomplishments included a 20-12 mark, a victory over No. 3 ranked Texas and four victories over ranked opponents. His 2005-06 Colorado team also reached the 20-win plateau and compiled a 9-7 record in the Big 12. That team was one of four of Patton's Buff squads to be selected to the National Invitational Tournament along with the 1998-99, 1999-2000 and 2003-04 units.
In addition to Billups, Patton protégés David Harrison (2004), a 7-footer from Nashville, Tennessee, and Jaquay Walls (2000) were selected in the NBA draft during his time at CU.
Renowned as a teacher who is dedicated to developing all aspects of his student-athletes, Patton also tirelessly worked to promote Colorado basketball during his time in Boulder. His team initiatives included instituting a preseason etiquette class for his players, taking them to different denominations of churches and exposing them to life in the Denver County jail.
Phillips said that Patton brings the total package to Northern Illinois.
"When I entered into this search, I was looking for someone who matched five criteria," Phillips said. "...unquestioned personal character, Division I head coaching experience, proven success in terms of taking his team to postseason play, a strong recruiter and a fit for our institution, academically as well as athletically. Without a doubt, Ricardo Patton possesses each of these qualities."
On the court, Patton promised a team that will work hard and play entertaining basketball.
"My philosophy is that our team will play hard from start to finish," he said. "We spend a great deal of time in the preseason preparing for success, and we talk to our players about your effort matching your goal. If you want 'A's, you have to give 'A' effort. Fans will be entertained by our style of play, by our pressure defense and by our offensive team chemistry. Our offensive philosophy is that the right man to have the ball is the open man."
Prior to going to Colorado, Patton served as an assistant coach at Middle Tennessee State (1988-90), Arkansas-Little Rock (1990-91) and Tennessee State (1991-93). While at MTSU, the Blue Raiders upset fourth-ranked Florida State, while his Tennessee State recruits included Carlos Rogers, who went on to earn the No. 11 pick in the NBA Draft. The 48-year-old native of Nashville, Tenn. earned a bachelor's degree from Belmont College, where he was an All-American as a senior, in 1980 and has a master's degree from Trevecca Nazarene College. He and his wife Jennifer have two sons, Ricardo II and Michael.
Patton replaces Rob Judson, who spent six years at the helm of the NIU program. Northern Illinois concluded a 7-23 season in 2006-07 with a loss in the first round of the Mid-American Conference Tournament.
NIU announces 2007 recipients
of SPS Presidential Awards for Excellence
Four members of the Supportive Professional Staff (SPS) have been chosen to receive the university’s Presidential Awards for Excellence.
The recipients are Debra R. Hopkins, director of the NIU CPA Review; Julia S. Lamb, outreach coordinator for the NIU Center for Southeast Asian Studies; Steven E. Lux, health educator in Health Enhancement; and Blanche McHugh, associate director for residential administration in Housing and Dining.
They will be honored at a reception from 2 to 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 10, in the Clara Sperling Sky Room in the Holmes Student Center. The awards ceremony begins at 2:30 p.m. Each will receive a plaque and $1,500 in appreciation for their outstanding contributions to NIU.
Elizabeth Leake of Information Technology Services will receive the SPS Council Service Award.
Refreshments will be served, and the reception is open to all.
Debra Hopkins
Director, NIU CPA Review
It figures Debra Hopkins would add another honor to her ledger.
Hopkins has directed NIU’s CPA Review Program since 1991. During that time, the program has grown to serve more than 1,200 aspiring accountants each year.
She transformed the review to reflect changes in the CPA exam from a paper exam to an on-demand computer based test. She is the primary instructor of the auditing section, which has placed in the top five national pass rates for 16 of the last 30 CPA exams, more than any other U.S. university.
Meanwhile, she’s authored two books and taught international accounting standards. She provides professional training for public accounting firms and corporate finance officers. She serves on the board of directors and audit committee of the National Bank & Trust Company.
“Debra is truly a teacher’s teacher,” said Pamela Smith, KMPG Professor of Accountancy at NIU. “Her teaching style stems from her passion for the accountancy profession and her desire to share her extensive knowledge with others.”
Hopkins, who joined NIU in 1987, was among last year’s 25 “Amazing Women.” In 2005, she won the AICPA “Women to Watch” award. Her public service includes the Illinois CPA Society, a 23,000-member accounting organization, where she will chair the board of directors next year.
Julia Lamb
Outreach Coordinator, Center for Southeast Asian Studies
Educators at some of the nation’s top universities probably wish they could clone Julia Lamb.
Instead, they’re collaborating in an attempt to copy some of her most successful programs at NIU’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies.
As the center’s outreach coordinator, Lamb coordinates Southeast Asia programs with faculty, staff, students, guests and other NIU programs, centers and colleges. She recruits students into the Southeast Asia minor and the graduate concentration. She provides resources on Southeast Asia. She helps to design and edit the annual newsletter.
Her work includes maintenance of budgets, reports and Web pages related to Southeast Asia outreach programs, development and implementation of conferences, workshops and programs, and evaluation of Southeast Asia resource materials.
She played an instrumental role in the International Ramayana Conference and Fair at NIU, and annually recruits host families for Philippine youth who come to campus for an intensive one-month seminar on conflict resolution, volunteerism and diversity in American society.
An external evaluator who analyzed CSEAS last year praised Lamb, who joined NIU in 1997, for helping “to build easily the best Southeast Asia outreach effort in the U.S.”
“Ms. Lamb and other non-academic staff are the glue that hold complex operations together,” the evaluator wrote. “Dangerously, they are also easy to take for granted.”
Steve Lux
Health educator
College is when many young people experience new things, some that are decidedly non-academic. Steve Lux is here to make sure those “extracurriculars” don’t cause unintended – and unhealthy – consequences.
Lux, who came to NIU in 1982, is a pioneer in the college health field. Since he helped to establish Health Enhancement Services, his leadership in creating and implementing innovative, collaborative programs and services has placed him on the cutting edge.
His 1992 sabbatical culminated in an Internet-based health promotion listserv discussion group, facilitating communication among 1,500 health educators nationwide.
He oversaw the development of one of the most extensive condom availability programs on a college campus. His work to promote safer sex and reduce sexual health risks has helped reduce the numbers of sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancies at NIU.
A fellow of the American College Health Association, he was on the team responsible for a social marketing campaign to reduce alcohol-related harm to students.
“Steve exhibits a strong desire and ability to be involved in health promotion and disease promotion activities that are data-driven and student-centered,” wrote Amy Franklin and Mary Strohm, both of the NIU Division of Student Affairs. “He is unwavering in his commitment to utilize limited resources to provide the most effective student health promotion interventions possible.”
Blanche McHugh
Associate Director for Residential Administration
Blanche McHugh is someone who has made sure that NIU students living in the residence halls are learning there as well.
McHugh, who came to NIU in 1975, has a “nearly legendary” skill as a trainer for the many young professional and undergraduate staff members who succeed as leaders in the residence halls.
During the past decade, she played a vital role in shaping the evolution of the Academic Residential Program in the halls. In addition to chairing monthly planning meetings, she assisted house coordinators in developing the paraprofessional house leader positions and program-specific learning opportunities for residents.
She’s an integral member of the Northern View Community planning team, and in her current role as associate director for administration oversees the marketing, contracts and assignments and summer conference initiatives for more than 6,000 residents and thousands of conference delegates.
McHugh also is known as the lead author of a $400,000 Department of Justice grant that allowed NIU to develop an Interpersonal Violence Response Team, a frequent presenter at national conferences and a member of last year’s “25 Amazing Women.”
“Blanche McHugh understands what it means to connect a student’s in- and out-of-classroom experiences,” said Michael Stang, director of residential facilities and operations. “Her work has improved the lives of countless students.”
Robinson to promote visual literacy at seminar
NIU faculty are acutely aware that visuals provide good learning tools.
Rhonda Robinson, a Distinguished Teaching Professor in the College of Education’s Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment, knows that.
She also knows that visuals are key to the future. Today’s college students have grown up bombarded by hundreds of TV channels, after all, and are among the most-frequent visitors and contributors to user-driven Web sites such as YouTube and myspace.
But “just watching hasn’t been shown to make you more visually literate,” she said. “It’s how you watch, how you look, how you analyze.”
Visual literacy includes concepts of viewing, analyzing and creating visuals for better communication.
Consequently, Robinson believes she still can suggest to her university colleagues how to make even better use of the visuals at their disposal: “We can bring in both the cognitive and the affective domain,” she said.
“The idea of feelings, motivations and attitudes is something we tend to downplay in our teaching … but we should want people to not only know how to do something but to be good at it, enjoy it, be excited about it and interested in it,” she said. “Visual information very often can help people improve their affective response as well as their learning. Here at NIU, the tools are available.”
Robinson will present “Visual Literacy: Learning to See, Seeing to Learn,” a Presidential Teaching Professor Seminar scheduled for noon Thursday, March 29, in the Capitol Room of the Holmes Student Center.
Refreshments will be served at 11:30 a.m. All are invited. Call (815) 753-1085 for more information.
“Teaching, if not the most important thing we do here, is certainly the most important thing we do with our students, and the Presidential Teaching Professors are the best of the best. The intent of the seminars is to have them share their thoughts, ideas and insights about teaching,” Vice Provost Earl “Gip” Seaver said. “I’ve found them to be quite stimulating and very focused on what people can do to help students learn.”
Robinson was drawn into visual learning during her years as a language arts teacher to seventh- and eighth-graders.
As she became interested in film and video, and followed her curiosity, she saw that students who created visual representations of what they had learned gained a stronger grasp of the knowledge.
“Viewing is a language art to me. We usually think of reading, writing, speaking and listening, and I add viewing to that,” she said. “Viewing is motivational, informational and provides people a second channel by which to understand difficult concepts.”
Fortunately, critical viewing is a skill – not a talent – that students can learn. They’re already comfortable and familiar with the territory.
“We should do this not because students like it, but because they could become more proficient at it,” Robinson says. “One of the things visual literacy brings to the table is helping people become more critically conscious about what they’re viewing, and what it means to them.”
For example, Robinson points to body image in women.
Popular media promotes images of thin women, she says, and stresses the need for new clothes with every season.
“Developing visual literacy skills would help young women to not be so overwhelmed by the fashion images they see in magazines, in movies and on TV,” she says. “You cannot accept that message from advertising. Visual literacy helps them to critically analyze what the message is from advertising and to realize why advertising does that.”
Meanwhile, she says, some students are counting on a strong visual literacy component to their college experience. They learn through using and creating visuals.
“We have special learners coming to college. In previous generations, that was not so true,” Robinson says. “We need more multi-modal learning opportunities.”
Blackwell Museum to display children’s artwork
NIU’s Blackwell History of Education Museum always has shown its visitors the camera eye’s view of life in rural one-room schoolhouses.
Now it will present those memories from the perspective of modern-day children.
“Country School Memories,” an art exhibition that will feature 35 paintings of one-room schoolhouses created by Batavia elementary school students, will be on display from Saturday, March 31, through Sunday, April 15, in the museum located in the Learning Center of Gable Hall.
An opening reception is scheduled from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Saturday, March 31.
The festivities will include remarks from Nancy Legner, art teacher at Louise White Elementary School in Batavia. Her talk is co-sponsored by the Division of Art Education in the NIU School of Art. Call (815) 753-1236 for more information.
“We wanted to get children involved in the museum,” said Connie Hansen, the museum’s education specialist and a longtime friend of Legner’s. “I gave Nancy a call – she has students in Batavia – and I wondered if they would be interested in visiting the schoolhouse. She said that maybe an art project would be a good thing for them to do.”
“What a great learning experience this was for them,” NIU alumna Legner said of the third-, fourth- and fifth-graders who participated. “Picasso said every child is an artist, and it’s so true. It’s so true.”
Legner began the five-week project last fall by showing her students “Rural School Journeys,” the DeKalb County Historical-Genealogical Society-produced book of black-and-white photographs of DeKalb County one-room schoolhouses.
The Sandwich resident and her students talked about the images, heard oral histories from people who attended one-room schools and discussed how daily life had changed through the decades.
Her old Sears-Roebuck catalogues offered examples of time-appropriate clothing, furniture and transportation.
And then work began.
“They all selected the schoolhouses they wanted to illustrate,” Legner said. “I gave them fairly large pieces of paper, a little under 18 inches by 24 inches, because I like to have my students work big. It’s more monumental and showy when it’s done.”
First, the children sketched their works with pencil and straight-edge rulers.
Later they dipped brushes into watercolors to paint their drawings, also using black and color Sharpies for some of the detail work. The markers add “some crispness” to the mixed-media pieces, she said.
The results enchanted Legner, the Illinois Elementary Art Educator of the Year for 2007. “They let their imaginations go,” she said. “Children express who they are through their art, and their own little unique personalities came out.”
Birds and butterflies flutter past clouds and barbed wire – “I explained that Mr. Glidden and Mr. Ellwood invented barbed wire,” Legner said – while horses and even outhouses stand in the backgrounds.
Trees hold tire swings and drop acorns. Cobblestone paths lead to schoolhouse doors. Smoke rises from chimneys while flags wave above the gingerbread- and checkerboard-shingled roofs.
“Some have squirrels climbing up trees. Some girls are kneeling down in the grass, picking flowers. You can look inside some of the windows to see activities inside of the schoolhouse. You can see lunch pails underneath the potbelly stoves, and there are dunce caps,” she said.
“Some did fall scenes, with leaves falling down. Some did spring. One girl did winter, with children out in front of the schoolhouse making a snowman and throwing snowballs.”
Even the skies are striking.
“Instead of painting plain old blue skies, I stressed to experiment,” Legner said. “We have purple skies, pink skies, blue and green skies – it looks like a tornado could be coming. Some of them have swirly lines in the skies, like something van Gogh would have put in.”
Legner and the students frequently critiqued the works in progress, and the teacher hung many of the best paintings on the art room walls to motivate the students.
Afterward, the task of choosing only 35 for the Blackwell exhibition proved difficult.
“I had so many beautiful ones,” she said. “When these children take these home, they’re going to bring home masterpieces they can frame and preserve and show their children some day.”
But for Legner, who came to NIU for a master’s degree earned in 1978 and a master of fine arts degree completed in 1983, the project is a finale-of-sorts for her career in education and a fitting start to the next phase of her life.
She’s retiring this spring from nearly 24 years of teaching in the public schools to become a professional, exhibiting artist.
“Nothing could bring me more happiness than to get these paintings ready and mounted and take them to an art show. It’s such a good experience for the children to come and see their artwork at the museum. It gives you such a sense of joy to see the end results of such a very long and hard project,” Legner said.
“These children now see the whole evolution of the art making: the artist’s process from learning to thinking to planning to execution, getting it ready to frame and mount for exhibition, the opening reception and the press releases,” she added. “They got letters from the university inviting them to the reception, and they felt so special. It’s so good for their self-esteem.”
Duke University scholar will deliver keynote address
at conference on literature, language, media
Author and scholar Toril Moi will deliver the keynote lecture for the Midwestern Conference on Literature, Language, and Media at 8 p.m. Saturday, March 31, in the Pollock Room of the Barsema Alumni and Visitors Center.
The event is free and open to the public. Moi is the James B. Duke Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University. Her NIU lecture is titled, “‘I am not a Woman Writer’: On Women, Writing, and Feminism.”
Moi is author of several books, including “Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory” (1985), “Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman” (1994) and “What Is a Woman? And Other Essays” (1999). Her most recent book, “Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism: Art, Theater, Philosophy,” was published by Oxford University Press in September 2006.
Moi’s research interests include feminist theory and women’s writing, the interconnections between literature and philosophy, psychoanalytic theory and European literature. She teaches courses on gender studies with an emphasis on French author Simone de Beauvoir and in theater emphasizing Norwegian playwright Ibsen.
This year marks the 15th anniversary of the Midwestern Conference on Literature, Language, and Media, held annually during the spring at NIU. The two-day event (March 30-31) is expected to draw about 125 graduate students and faculty scholars from across the world.
Graduate students in the Department of English at NIU organize and run the conference. This year’s presentations cover a wide range of topics that include literature, film, literary theory and gender studies. A full schedule is available online at http://www.engl.niu.edu/mcllm/.
Moi’s keynote lecture is sponsored by the Midwestern Conference, Graduate Colloquium, Women’s Studies Program and departments of English, Foreign Languages and Literatures and History.
Author of ‘Citizen Marketers’ to lecture at NIU
Best-selling author and marketing guru Jackie Huba will visit NIU to deliver the annual Albert Walker/Arthur W. Page Society Distinguished Ambassador Lecture.
The lecture will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, April 2, in the Altgeld Hall Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.
Huba will lecture on “Citizen Marketers: When People are the Message.” She and Ben McConnell have co-authored a new book with the same title, examining the early history of social media and why it has taken root so quickly.
A solitary citizen today with a broadband connection and a few inexpensive tools has a substantially better chance of influencing the public perceptions of billion-dollar corporations than ever before. Huba will discuss the various types of citizen marketers, their motivations, how to work with them and how they are influencing purchase decisions for products, brands and companies.
Huba also is the author of “Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force,” which the New York Times called “the new mantra for entrepreneurial success.” The book has been translated into six languages and the term “customer evangelism” has become a talking point and focus for countless worldwide companies since the book’s release in 2002.
As a speaker and business adviser, Huba has worked with Whirlpool, Discovery, Yahoo and American Express as well as thousands of small and medium businesses at association conferences. She also spent more than a decade leading business-to-business marketing efforts in the software division of IBM.
Her work in researching passionate customer loyalty has been profiled by the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Fortune, Business Week, U.S. News & World Report, the Financial Times and several thousand blogs.
The Third Annual Al Walker/Page Lecture is sponsored by College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the College of Business and the departments of communication and marketing.
For more information, contact Walter Atkinson in the Department of Communication at (815) 753-7009.
Accounting sets FY07 cut-off dates
Fiscal Year 2007 soon will close, and cut-off dates must be established.
These dates are mainly pertinent to FY2007 orders using General Revenue funds, but the same dating conventions are followed for those orders using other fund sources. Please keep in mind that the last quarter of the fiscal year is NIU's busiest, with departments simultaneously preparing to close out FY2007 and processing, bidding and issuing orders for FY2008.
State law requires that all FY2007 General Revenue orders be completed, including all payments, by the end of the lapse period. Orders must be issued prior to June 30, 2007, and the goods received, invoiced and all payment paperwork turned in to Accounting not later than Aug. 3, 2007, regardless of dollar amount. This will allow time for processing and payment of invoices here or from Springfield by the Aug. 31 deadline. If it is known that delivery cannot be completed before the lapse period cut-off date (Aug. 3), the requisition can be cancelled or converted to a FY2008 requisition/order.
Accounting's goal is to provide a uniform, quality service to all, but the cut-off dates must be strictly followed to enable the staff to achieve this level of service for each office and department. This includes meeting all legal requirements, including bidding and any required university approval processes.
Orders over $250,000: FY07 purchase requests above this level are now past the deadline. Please contact Accounting immediately if contemplating a purchase that has not been reviewed for Board of Trustees approval. This Again, delivery by the Aug. 2 cut-off is required. FY2008 orders needed early in July will be required at the same time.
Orders of $25,000 up to $250,000: FY07 purchase requests in this dollar range must be in the Accounting office no later than April 12, 2007. General Revenue-funded orders in this range are approved at the presidential level but must be bid, approvals given, ordered and delivered, with invoicing completed by Aug. 2, 2007.
Orders under $25,000: FY07 purchase requests under $25,000 should be received in the Accounting Office and Procurement Services no later than June 1, 2007. Requests received after this date will be handled on a case-by-case basis, at the discretion of the buyer. Where competitive opportunities exist, buyers will seek competitive quotations to obtain the best pricing and delivery.
Purchase Requests using FY2006 General Revenue (02) funds in any amount for new purchases will not be accepted for processing after June 7, 2007. If the purchase request has not been received in Accounting by June 7, it may not be processed as an FY2007 order. The same rule will apply to all FY2007 purchase requests regardless of fund sources used.
Orders from other than General Revenue funds: All goods and/or services from orders funded from locally held funds must be received and/or services completed and invoice dated by June 30, 2007, to be expensed in FY2007. If received after that date, any charges will be expensed to your FY2008 budget.
If there are questions, call now. It also is difficult to handle last-minute orders, so submit purchase requests immediately. Being “late” can mean no purchase order and no products when they are wanted or needed.
FY2008 purchase requests, either for open orders or for specific purchases, also can be submitted now. Doing so helps to ensure needs for FY2008 can be met efficiently and in a timely manner.
NIU production of ‘Tracers’ aims for accuracy
NIU School of Theatre and Dance faculty member Patricia Ridge wants everyone to know what it is like to be a combat soldier.
She will direct the school’s theatrical production of John DiFusco’s memory play about the Vietnam War, “Tracers,” in the Players Theatre on the DeKalb campus from March 29 through April 15.
Ridge would especially like college students to see the play in order to put the Iraq war in historical perspective. She believes that there are striking parallels between the Vietnam War and the Iraq War.
“We look at the Iraq War and [see] we haven’t learned anything,” Ridge says, “except we need to always support the troops.”
Ridge is particularly sensitive to this aspect of any war’s aftermath, because her brother was spat upon when he returned home from fighting in Vietnam. As a result, she is dedicating the play to veterans who returned from the Vietnam War, and by doing so, hopes to thank them for their service.
Ridge also explains that “Tracers,” although set in Vietnam, shows what any war does to human beings, and to make that very clear, pain-staking efforts are being made to recreate what Vietnam combat soldiers experienced. Consequently, sights, sounds, uniforms and props are technically complex, according to Ridge, for a very realistic portrayal of the period.
“Tracers” will be performed in the round with the audience close to the stage and speakers surrounding the theater, so the audience will feel immersed in the world of the play.
Sound designer Katie Hemmeter, a junior B.A. theatre major, has four-and-a-half pages of sound cues so far, calling for gunfire, explosions, the chaotic sounds of an ambush and helicopters. One of Hemmeter’s most challenging scenes will include the sounds of a helicopter flying in, hovering and then flying out.
In addition to the sounds of warfare, Ridge included music from the 1960s, which she explains as significant, because “the Vietnam War was the first rock ’n’ roll war.”
However, Hemmeter says, “Mixed in with it will be Vietnamese music. One will fade in and one will fade out.”
The costumes are real army fatigues, helmets and gear that were made for the Vietnam War, from the school’s own costume storage as well as what could be found by searching the Internet and Army surplus stores. Costume designer Michelle Urbaniak, a graduate student, began researching Vietnam War uniforms last December in order to ensure what she used “existed during the ’60s and the Vietnam War.”
“There was a large mixture of different ways to wear the uniform, hair, facial hair and accessories,” Urbaniak explains. “I want the costumes to be as accurate as possible for the audience members to get an understanding of what this war was like.”
Even the actors are learning the reality of army life. To help them fully understand the script, the characters they portray and what it is like to prepare for war, the actors underwent boot camp. In January, retired Army Lt. Col. Phyllis Naffziger put them through the first rigorous stages of a soldier’s training, complete with dog tags, marching in formation and all the “recruits” receiving “buzz” haircuts.
“I told Lt. Col. Naffziger to take no prisoners,” Ridge says. “They needed to learn the language and learn everything that is referred to in the script.”
Due to the adult content, no one younger than 17 will be admitted.
“Tracers” will be performed in the Players Theatre from March 29 through April 1 and from April 11 through April 15, at 7:30 p.m. weekdays with a 2 p.m. showing Sundays. The theater is located behind the McDonald’s and Pizza Hut restaurants on east Lincoln Highway.
Tickets are $14 for adults, $8 for seniors and $7 for students. For reservations or more information, call the Stevens Building box office at (815) 753-1600 from 12:30 p.m. until 4:30 p.m. weekdays and one hour before curtain.
NIU seeks host families for brief international exchange
NIU is seeking families in DeKalb and Sycamore to host Muslim and non-Muslim high school students and adult leaders from the Southern Philippines for two weeks in April.
The visitors will be participating in a training institute led by the university’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies and International Training Office. Funded by the U.S. Department of State, the institute is designed to promote conflict resolution and interethnic and interfaith dialogue. Participants are selected through a competitive application process, have outstanding academic credentials and are fluent in English.
The training institute will introduce participants to American institutions that promote tolerance and will expose them to the religious and ethnic diversity of the United States. NIU hopes to place the high school students with local families who have students of the same age if possible.
The Filipino students and adult leaders will stay with their host families from April 22 to May 6. Host families will provide the visitors with transportation to and from campus, where workshops will be held daily. Students will join their host families for breakfasts and most dinners. The students also will have at least one free day each week during the two-week host-family experience.
Host families will be invited to attend an orientation session. During the orientation, past host families will share their experiences from similar programs held in previous years.
Interested families should contact Julie Lamb, outreach coordinator for the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at (815) 753-1595 or jlamb@niu.edu.
NIU to offer free program on ‘Disney’ customer service
Every interaction you have with a student, alumni, co-worker or client affects the image of our university. Are you doing all you can to make this a positive experience?
Disney is coming to town to help NIU faculty and staff learn how to apply a little “Disney magic” to our organization. All NIU faculty and staff are invited to participate in a complimentary Disney seminar, “Service, Disney Style,” on Wednesday, June 6, at Barsema Hall.
Exclusively offered to NIU employees, the seminar will take place in Dennis Barsema Auditorium in Barsema Hall. NIU is sponsoring the free 90-minute session in customer service and team-building. Disney’s principles for service excellence and service philosophy, developed for its highly successful corporation and theme parks, have proven successful in all kinds of organizations. Because seating is limited, the seminar requires pre-registration.
“We are able to offer this opportunity to faculty and staff because we are working with Disney to deliver these programs across the region,” said Brian Vollmert, NIU Outreach director of education and training. “The Disney program will provide a chance to learn more about the successful service strategies of a business organization known worldwide for having happy customers.”
NIU Outreach is coordinating arrangements for the seminar in cooperation with Human Resource Services and with support from NIU Human Resource Services, SPS Council and the Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center.
This is a unique opportunity to discover the business behind Disney’s magic. Participants will walk away understanding the tools necessary to raise a culture of high-quality service to a new level. The morning session takes place from 9:30 to 11 a.m. The afternoon session is scheduled from 1:30 to 3 p.m.
Register now online. There is no penalty for cancellations, but if you cannot attend, call (815) 753-0277, e-mail outreachregistration@niu.edu or fax (815) 753-6900 as soon as possible. For more information, contact Donna Mann, program administrator, at (815) 732-6249 or via e-mail at dmann@niu.edu.
Financial Aid offers reminder
Filed for 2007-2008 financial aid yet? See www.fa.niu.edu for information and/or watch your NIU Z-ID e-mail account.
Art professor from Turkey to present ‘Earth, Potter, Fire’
Oya Pancaroðlu, assistant professor in the Department of Archaeology and History of Art at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, will present “Earth, Potter, and Fire: A Short History of Medieval Islamic Ceramics,” at 5 p.m. Tuesday, March 27, in Room 100 of the Art Building.
A series of innovations in glazed ceramic technology, introduced in the pottery workshops of the 9th century, often have been described as an artistic revolution with repercussions extending not only into the subsequent centuries of ceramic production in the Islamic world but also into Renaissance Italy and beyond.
This lecture will outline both developments in the ceramic industry between the 9th and 13th centuries and explore the remarkable engagement of ceramics with other forms of art as well as with literary culture.
Pancaroðlu obtained her doctorate in Islamic art history from Harvard University in 2000. She spent the six following years at the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford, first as a research fellow and later as a lecturer. Her research focuses especially on the larger literary and intellectual contexts of figural representation in medieval Islamic cultures, especially on ceramics, metalwork and in illustrated manuscripts.
A secondary area of research is the history of architecture in Anatolia between 1100 and 1500. She has most recently published “Perpetual Glory: Medieval Islamic Ceramics from the Harvey B. Plotnick Collection” (Art Institute of Chicago and Yale University Press, 2007) to accompany the exhibition of the same title at the Art Institute of Chicago (March 31 to Aug. 12).
More information about the exhibition is available online at http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/exhibition/plotnick.
This talk is the second in the Spring 2007 Elizabeth Allen Visiting Lectures in Art History Series, hosted by the Art History Division and funded in part by the NIU Visiting Artists and Scholars Program. For more information about events at the NIU School of Art, visit www.niu.edu/art.
Wellness Fair offers chance to explore ‘six dimensions’
The NIU Wellness Fair 2007 will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday, March 28, in the Duke Ellington Ballroom and Capitol Room of the Holmes Student Center. Co-sponsored by the Employee Assistance and Wellness Program and Recreation Services, the fair is open to all NIU students, faculty and staff, as well as community members.
The Wellness Fair offers the opportunity to explore resources related to the six dimensions of wellness: physical, social, emotional, intellectual, spiritual and occupational. More than 85 booths will feature campus and non-campus providers offering a variety of free screenings, assessments, massages, educational and awareness activities, as well as free drawings and give-aways.
Call (815) 753-9191 for more information.
Brown Bag Lecture to feature NIU geologist Ross Powell
NIU’s Lifelong Learning Institute will host Geology Professor Ross Powell from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, March 28, in the Holmes Student Center, Room 505. His presentation is titled “Report from the Ends of the Earth: Drilling in the Antarctic.”
Bring a lunch, pick one up at the HSC Blackhawk Cafeteria or just come and listen. The lecture is free and all are welcome. For details, call (815) 753-5200.
Art professor from Stanford
to present ‘Piety or Parody?’
Melinda Takeuchi, professor of Japanese art at Stanford University and executive director emerita of the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Study, Yokohama, Japan, will present, “The Apotheosis of the Great Danjûrô the Eighth: Piety or Parody?” at 5 p.m. Thursday, March 29, in Room 100 of the Visual Arts Building.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, it was the practice to issue memorial prints, called shini-e, when a popular individual died. Most shini-e depict kabuki actors. Shini-e might celebrate the actor’s life by showing him in his most famous roles. They often include the actor’s own death poem. Sometimes they employ compositions lifted from religious art, substituting the actor’s image for the Buddha’s.
This long-neglected genre of Japanese art is a treasure trove of conflicting notions of the afterlife, commercialism of the theatrical milieu, lineage, fandom, and the protocols of death.
Takeuchi’s talk focuses on the death prints illustrating the 19th century’s most beloved actor, Ichikawa Danjûrô VIII. Danjûrô’s tragic suicide at the age of 31 spawned an unprecedented number of commemorative pictures, by some counts as many as 200. This welter of images runs the gamut from somber representations to pictures that would seem to cross the line from piety into parody. How the Japanese negotiated this fine line is the central question raised in this lecture.
Takeuchi’s diverse expertise in Japanese paintings and prints has led to a range of accolades. Her book “Taiga’s True Views: The Language of Landscape Painting in Eighteenth-Century Japan” (Stanford, 1992) won the Association for Asian Studies John W. Hall Prize for best book in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Her edited volume “The Artist as Professional in Japan” (Stanford University Press, 2004) received rave reviews.
This talk is the third in the Spring 2007 Elizabeth Allen Visiting Lectures in Art History Series, hosted by the Art History Division and funded in part by the NIU Visiting Artists and Scholars Program. For more information about events at the NIU School of Art, visit www.niu.edu/art.
Indonesian political scientist to speak
Political Science Professor Ramlan Surbakti of Airlangga University in Surabaya, Indonesia, will deliver a lecture on “Elections in Indonesia” at 3 p.m. Friday, March 30, in the Heritage Room of the Holmes Student Center.
Surbakti is chairman of the General Election Institute in the Republic of Indonesia and also is an NIU alumnus (political science, 1991).
The lecture is open to the public. It is sponsored by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies and the Department of Political Science.
April marks LGBT Awareness Month
Education, activism and entertainment are all part of the calendar of events for April’s celebration of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Awareness Month.
Featured events include training workshops for the Ally Program, comedian Lorne Newman, the National Day of Silence/Night of Noise, a presentation on “Gay Straight Alliances: Education and Queer Curiosity” by Chris Mayo from the University of Illinois and Prism’s 11th annual drag and variety show.
Full details about these and all other events are available by visiting the online calendar of events at www.niu.edu/lgbt, calling (815) 753-5428 or e-mailing lgbt@niu.edu.
LGBT hosts Ally Awards reception
The university community is invited to the third annual Ally Awards reception to kick off Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Awareness Month in April.
The reception is scheduled from 2 to 4 p.m. Monday, April 2, in the Clara Sperling Sky Room of the Holmes Student Center. A recognition ceremony will be held at 3 p.m. to present the awards.
The Ally Awards recognize individuals, departments or groups who have shown their support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) people or the LGBT community during the 2006-2007 school year. All are welcome.
The awards are sponsored by the LGBT Resource Center, LGBT Studies Program and the Presidential Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.
For more information about the Ally Awards, visit www.niu.edu/lgbt/allyawards.htm, call (815) 753-5428 or e-mail lgtb@niu.edu.
Ally Program offers training workshops
The Ally Program is a campus-wide program designed to foster a welcoming and supportive campus environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender students, faculty and staff by creating a visible network of allies.
Faculty, staff, graduate assistants, residence hall staff and students who want to visibly show their support for LGBT people are invited to volunteer for the Ally Program.
Ally Program volunteers participate in a training workshop to learn more about how to be an effective ally, and then display the “NIU Ally” symbol on door signs, buttons and magnets to identify themselves as resource persons who can provide support and information. For more information about the Ally Program, visit www.niu.edu/lgbt/allyprogram.htm.
Volunteers must attend one three-hour training workshop. Space is limited, and advance registration is required.
Spring 2007 workshops are:
- Thursday, April 5, 1 to 4 p.m.
- Wednesday, April 11, 1 to 4 p.m.
- Monday, April 23, 9 a.m. to noon
- Tuesday, April 24, 9 a.m. to noon
To register, contact the LGBT Resource Center at (815) 753-LGBT or e-mail lgbt@niu.edu.
Alumni to host Paris trip
The NIU Alumni Association invites you to experience the romance that is Paris from May 18 through May 26.
Travelers can choose which days to browse the fashion houses and shops, contemplate art in one of the 90 museums, be amazed at the architecture, relax and people-watch in the sidewalk cafes or venture outside of the city on the optional tours.
Optional side-trips are planned to Giverny and Rouen, two Chateaux in the Loire Valley, and Mont Saint Michel, along with a Parisian cooking class.
The cost is $2,195 per person, double occupancy; single supplement is available. For more information or to place a reservation, call Pat Anderson at (815) 753-1512.
3-26-07
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