Joy has overcome heartbreak at NIU’s Child Development Lab, the proud home of a new playground for infants, toddlers and 2-year-olds.
One year has passed since two sad occasions when unknown vandals caused nearly $2,500 of damage to the old playground equipment, which included a “Discovery Tot Tree,” a “Country Cottage House” and an “Easy Stove Table.” The top of the plastic treehouse was ripped from the bottom, hoisted over the 4-foot fence and later found adrift in the river. The house and the table were torn apart.
A police report was filed, but no one ever was charged.
“We were just devastated,” says Linda Anderson, associate director of the Child Development Lab. “We couldn’t believe someone would do that to children.”
Now the children finally can return to the playground, which has been remodeled and re-equipped immediately outside Gabel Hall. About $28,000 has been spent so far.
Sara Kreiss, design consultant from the Brookfield, Ill., office of Mansfield, Texas-based Grounds for Play, worked with center leadership to create the perfect replacement. Kreiss also designed the playground at the neighboring Campus Child Care Center.
Planning was conducted over a period of months by Kreiss, Anderson, CDL Director Linda Derscheid and the lab’s entire staff of early childhood professionals.
“Sara attends our National Association for the Education of Young Children conferences, and our staff had seen her present. We liked the fact she was very up-to-date on the Americans with Disabilities Act and just overall safety,” Anderson says. “She has strong knowledge of child development as the rest of us do. That was nice because we could speak the same language.”
The 3,100-square-foot area, surrounded by an 8-foot-tall chain-link fence, sports a modern piece of elongated playground equipment with a variety of physical challenges.
Children can climb up one end of the “infant activity center” and slide down the other side; inside they can spin shapes and feel the textures of four carpet squares. They can look at themselves in a mirror or peer through a bright red pane. It’s sturdy enough for adults to crawl inside as well. The CDL’s symbol, designed by a parent, is professionally carved into one of the structure’s partial walls.
“I was interested in it looking more like a park. That was my big thing,” Anderson said. “We really took into consideration all their little leg and arm muscles.”
A circular wooden bench hugs a shady tree. An enormous sand box is tucked in a corner with a wooden deck attached. Embedded in a paved patio meant for tricycle traffic is a flat circular planter with simulated pizza slices: Children can plant pizza vegetables such as tomatoes or peppers, Anderson says, or flowers.
Sod has taken root in places that once were just muddy. Two storage chests are ready to hold all the playthings, and a full-size picnic table has been installed.
Grant proposals are being written for additional equipment, including a playhouse, a water table, an outdoor easel and more storage facilities.
“We’re so excited,” says Linda Derscheid, faculty director of the Child Development Lab. “It’s just so beautiful. This is a beautiful blessing.”
“Our children just absolutely loved watching the work,” Anderson adds, “the construction workers, the cement trucks.”
Some of the work coincided with an NIU project to move the sidewalk between the CDL’s two playgrounds – a larger play area for older children is located just to the east – that also helped make the playground more accessible to all. ADA compliance is a requirement for NAEYC accreditation.
Now children in wheelchairs can cruise around the patio, down a new sidewalk and even into a woodchip-covered surface surrounding the infant activity center. Workers also installed a ramp into the Gable Hall door nearby and a smaller ramp of sorts from the lab door that leads directly into the playground.
“Children gain in all areas of development while being active,” Derscheid says. “It does not only improve their motor coordination.”
NIU’s Child Development Laboratory is an operation of the School of Family, Consumer and Nutrition Sciences, located in the College of Health and Human Sciences.
The lab is licensed to care for 47 children from the ages of 6 weeks to 7 years. Services are offered to NIU employees and students as well as the public; care is available from 7:45 a.m. to 5 p.m. when the university is open.
Six full-time early childhood specialists lead the staff, which also includes several graduate assistants with backgrounds in child development, practicum students who are completing their child development emphasis in FCNS and pre-service teachers from the College of Education.
The lab has three missions: to care for children; to train, and teach practicum skills to, FCNS students; and to provide research opportunities for NIU faculty and students.
If you can make it there, the song says, you can make it anywhere.
A group of NIU School of Art students, five of their predecessors and their two professors will chomp a bite from that big apple this weekend.
“Predictions & Premonitions,” an NIU-developed exhibition of printmaking that attempts to glimpse into the future, opens Saturday at the Pearl Street Gallery in New York City. A reception is scheduled for 4 to 7 p.m. that afternoon at the Brooklyn gallery.
Michael Barnes, an associate professor in fine arts, discovered the unique opportunity. It’s the first trip to NYC for many of the students and, for most in the group, the first time to exhibit their work in “the center of the art world.”
The Pearl Street Gallery is located near the base of the Manhattan Bridge in the Dumbo area of Brooklyn, “a neighborhood that is happening with artist’s spaces and alternative gallery venues,” Barnes said.
“I was in New York City last year for an exhibition I was in, and I met Dr. Graeme Sullivan, who’s an associate professor of art education at Teachers College-Columbia University. He’s running the Pearl Street Gallery, a not-for-profit gallery in Brooklyn, and we went to see one of the shows. He suggested I submit a proposal for our group here. I followed up on that, and it came to be,” Barnes said.
“This is very exciting,” he added. “New York City is the center of the art world. The gallery scene is focused primarily in Chelsea, but there’s been a lot of movement toward Brooklyn because the space is more affordable and accessible.”
Barnes and faculty colleague Ashley Nason wanted to include all of their currents students, both undergraduate and graduate, and also selected the small group of alumni “just to feature the diversity of our program and the breadth of what printmaking encompasses.”
“Each group has slightly different focuses and stylistic trends,” said Barnes, who came to the NIU School of Art in 1998. “We try to maintain diversity. We let the students and their individual voices shine through, and I think our group displays that with their work, both traditional and contemporary.”
Printmaking has four major disciplines: intaglio, lithography, serigraphy and relief.
NIU’s coursework in intaglio includes etching, engraving, drypoint, collagraph and photo etching. The lithography courses provide instruction in stone, aluminum plate and photo lithography. Serigraphy (silk-screen) offers students the opportunity to learn stencil, resist, photographic and monoprint/monotype techniques utilizing water-based inks. Relief printing encompasses woodcut, linoleum, wood-engraving, monoprints, monotypes and collagraphy.
Contemporary approaches to printmaking include digital aspects as well as mixed media, such as sculptured prints.
The combination of printmaking and student-faculty-alumni collaboration appealed to Pearl Street administrators, Barnes said.
“This particular gallery runs a lot of education-based shows, and they like the sense of community that printmaking has,” he said. “We work in a studio reliant on equipment and space, so everyone tends to work in the same studio. We have to get along.”
Indeed, the brochure for “Predictions and Premonitions” has a similar thought from Barnes: “We all work alongside one another while creating our prints, sharing ideas, philosophies and energy.”
“ ‘Predictions & Premonitions’ are visual slippages that mutate between anticipation and alarm as the artists move past foibles, present fictions and future freakouts,” Pearl Street’s Sullivan wrote on the brochure. “Printmaking is an ideal medium to carry the artist as oracle and omen and the terrain troubled by the Illinois artists’ delights in its unsettling aesthetic.”
Graduate student Michael McGovern hatched the theme, suggesting the group concentrate on futuristic themes usually found in science fiction. Others expanded the theme by using a crystal ball to peek at the futures of their own artistic medium and NIU’s printmaking program.
“We have a strong community of artists working in printmaking all over the world,” Barnes said. “We tried to look at what our program encompasses and how it relates to the larger art world.”
As the students conceptualized, constructed and completed their works, they also wrote proposals to the school, the College of Visual and Performing Arts and the Graduate School in search of funding for the NYC jaunt.
With money earned from a silent auction and with financial support from the university, all of the students are able to attend Saturday’s reception.
Preparation also has meant matting and framing their works as well as building their own crates for packing and shipping. NIU’s delegation will arrive in Brooklyn a few days early to install the exhibition.
“It’s good experience for them,” Barnes said. “All of the students were like ‘Wow.’ A couple came in and said, ‘I called my parents last night. I was so excited.’ ”
Students making the trip include Tim Dwyer, Ann Flowers, William Higgins, Darren Houser, Anna Kenar, Peter Kenar, T.J. Lemanski, McGovern, Curtis William Readel and Jane Ryder. Alumni are Garrett Brown, Chris Cannon, Kevin Clapp, Michael Drogo and Valerie Wallace. Roxanne McGovern, McGovern’s wife and a printmaker herself, also is exhibiting with NIU.
For more information, visit www.pearlstreetgallery.net.
Jeff Karl Kowalski fancies himself a detective of sorts as he prowls the historical riddles of Mayan civilization through its ancient art and architecture.
A similar glow appears in the NIU art history professor’s eyes and even his smile when he traces his own heritage from childhood in Tulsa, Okla., through college days at Grinnell College in Iowa (where he met his wife) and two of the nation’s most prestigious universities and onto his first trip to the monuments in Uxmal.
“Even as a child I had an interest in ancient history and archaeology. I loved reading Greek mythology,” says Kowalski, co-editor of, and contributor to, a new book on the cities of Chichén Itzá and Tula. “My mother knew a person who helped put together collections for (Tulsa’s) Gilcrease Museum. He had done work in Mexico, visiting the sites, and brought back motion pictures of himself at these sites. It planted a seed.”
Kowalski, inspired by the teaching and insights of his mentors, including Columbia University’s Esther Pasztory, Yale University’s George Kubler and noted archaeologist Michael D. Coe, has nurtured that seed ever since.
“Twin Tollans: Chichén Itzá, Tula, and the Epiclassic to Early Postclassic Mesoamerican World,” which Kowalski edited with the Atlanta School of Art’s Cynthia Kristan-Graham, is only his latest exploration into the mysteries of ancient Maya.
Its title acknowledges conquest-period peoples of Mesoamerica, who considered Tollan to be a semi-mythical fount of civilization representing, and associated with, the golden age that also reflects the pinnacle of the arts. The Aztecs considered Tula to be one such Tollan, but other capital cities in Mesoamerica also bore this title; the book asserts that both Tula and Chichén Itzá were Tollans, rising to power simultaneously and exerting military and economic dominance over the regions they governed.
The 640-page book published this fall by Dumbarton Oaks, a major research center affiliated with Harvard University, challenges conventional wisdom as it seeks to clarify what factors contributed to a striking similarity in art and architecture between the two cities.
Was it a population migration or a military conquest of one city by the other, as was asserted by an earlier generation of scholars? Or, as many of the new book’s contributors agree, was it more likely the result of an exchange of goods, ideas, religious belief systems, cult practices, and ideological symbols between the sites’ political elites?
Work began after many of the scholars attended a two-day colloquium sponsored by Dumbarton Oaks in 2000. The impetus for the gathering came two years earlier during an earlier archaeological conference in Mexico.
“ ‘Twin Tollans’ brings together and synthesizes what has been an emerging and increasingly recognized view that the relationship between these two cities cannot be described just by the possible migration or a military conquest of one city against the other,” Kowalski says.
“A number of the papers in this volume have shed new light on the political organization in Chichén Itzá in particular,” he adds. “The book puts forth evidence that Chichén Itzá had a centralized form of political leadership – one, or a pair of senior and junior, divine kings.”
Yet he says there also is evidence of “many more members of the local elite – high-ranking polity leaders – to suggest that this system of kingship differed from that of the classic Maya cities that preceded Chichén Itzá.” Several leading scholars claimed in the 1990s that Chichén Itzá had a council form of government with shared powers.
The time period in question – the Epiclassic and Early Postclassic, circa 700 to 1150 A.D. – saw the disintegration of Teotihuacan and classic Mayan civilization and its aftermath. Tula and Chichén Itzá both rose to power during this time.
Earlier interpretations of their relationship relied heavily on later ethnohistorical sources regarding the importance of the Toltecs of Tula as the major power in central Mexico and as probable invaders and conquerors of the Maya of Yucatan. Some of the chapter writers argue, however, that Aztec nobility asserted that they had Toltec ancestry and magnified the accounts of earlier Toltec achievements to legitimate their own rise to imperial power.
The debate invigorates scholars such as Kowalski, who loves the aesthetic sophistication of Maya art, but enjoys even more the hunt for answers about its meaning.
“I went to Uxmal with my wife in 1974 as a young grad student entering the Ph.D. program at Yale. It was my first time to see one of these structures, and I was amazed by the scale, the monumental presence and by the aesthetic quality of the buildings and the sculptures at these sites,” he says.
“But by the same token, what really made me interested in this was not simply looking at these purely as aesthetic arrangements of form but trying to figure out what they meant. They had spent so much time and labor on them. I wanted to know what message were they trying to convey to themselves but, beyond that, I wanted to find it myself.”
Kowalski, who joined the NIU School of Art in 1982 and served as head of the art history division from 1996 to 2004, is also the author of 1987’s “The House of the Governor, A Maya Palace at Uxmal, Yucatan, Mexico.”
Studies under Floyd Lounsbury, a noted linguist, anthropologist and Mayan scholar and epigrapher, helped Kowalski to decipher hieroglyphic inscriptions at Uxmal and to identify the name of an influential and powerful divine king who ruled from a major palace, today known as the “House of the Governor,” around 900 A.D.
In 1988 and ’89, Kowalski was awarded a J. Paul Getty Foundation grant to conduct research at Uxmal. He researched and interpreted architectural sculptures at the Nunnery Quadrangle there.
In 1992, the National Geographic Society funded Kowalski’s collaboration with Alfredo Barrera Rubio, director of the Centro Regional de Yucatan, to excavate a round temple structure in Mexico.
Kowalski later edited and contributed to “Mesoamerican Architecture as a Cultural Symbol,” published by the Oxford Press in 1999. Among his 50 different scholarly contributions are 35 peer-reviewed journal articles or book chapters as well as a number of dictionary entries and other notes and book reviews.
“This latest book took a great deal of time, a great deal of energy and a commitment to keep in contact with colleagues to see the project through to the finish,” Kowalski says. “I felt great to finally see this. Just to hold it in my hands to feel the physical heft and to see the physical elegance of the design was a great day. I hope other Mesoamericanists agree that the intellectual heft and the elegance of our arguments match the weight of the book itself.”
Alan Robinson won an award last Tuesday at the annual meeting of the DeKalb County Partnership for a Safe, Active and Family Environment.
At least it looked like Robinson, the director of outreach in NIU’s College of Health and Human Sciences, who stood to shake the hand of lifelong friend Kris Povlsen and collect the handsome plaque. Povlsen even told the assembly a story from his childhood, of how the two-years-older Robinson permitted Povlsen to ride along on his bicycle paper route around Sycamore.
But the DCP/SAFE Certificate of Achievement truly belongs to the college’s Mobile Health Assessment Unit, Robinson says.
Renovated in late 2005 with a grant of $10,626 from the DeKalb County Community Foundation, the trailer serves “vulnerable populations” often without transportation, such as children, the elderly and, primarily, Hispanic families.
This August alone, it traveled to Dixon, Mendota, Ottawa and Streator with certified health care providers from NIU’s Tri-County Community Health Center to serve the Head Start population in those communities. Tri-County is one of the few medical facilities that accepts Medicaid.
In late July, the trailer attended a health and back-to-school fair at Conexion Communidad, where the services that day included eye screenings. It also made a trip to Kishwaukee Hospital for a health carnival where Wellness Center staff used part of the trailer to conduct bone density screenings.
“The trailer is getting more and more attention,” Robinson said, “and we’re able to use it in more and more places.”
For the last two years, Robinson has dispatched the trailer to the DeKalb Public Schools administration building on South Fourth Street to conduct last-minute physicals and give vaccines to schoolchildren who otherwise are turned away from classrooms. The trailer was open from noon to 7 p.m. for two days.
This August, 43 students received either school physicals or immunizations or both. A similar number took advantage of the trailer in 2006. Many qualify for free or reduced-cost lunch.
“We made sure the kids didn’t have to miss any days out of school,” said Cherry Felton, a nurse at NIU’s Tri-County Clinic. “The parents said, ‘Oh, I’m so glad. I didn’t have to take an extra day off work, and I wanted my child to be in school every day.’ ”
“It’s very important children get into school just as quickly as possible. Every day they’re out they get further and further behind,” added Sue Orem, the recently retired literacy coordinator for the DeKalb Public Schools. “Attendance is critical, especially in the first few weeks when a lot of ground rules are laid down.”
Bette Chilton, director of personal health services for the DeKalb County Health Department, said the trailer has lifted the pressure off her staff.
“During the fall, when we’re trying to meet the need of the community for school physicals, this year and in years past we get down to crunch time with the schools starting and we don’t have any availability for appointments. People can’t get into doctors’ offices,” Chilton said. “It’s been a huge relief to the community. When we’re not able to serve our clients, the trailer is a place we can refer them to, especially our low-income clients.”
Felton, who works as the trailer’s nurse alongside a nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant, a phlebotomist and a certified nurse’s assistant, said the trailer helps to spread the word about Tri-County and the acceptance of Medicaid.
“With us being the only real rural clinic, and the only one that takes Medicaid, these patients actually need this really, really bad. We’re making sure they’re keeping up with their physicals and their health care, and we’re educating them,” Felton said. “A lot of people don’t know about Tri-County being here and the services we offer.”
Indeed, the trailer stemmed from a local survey of residents for whom English is a second language.
Many reported they only went to the doctor when they were sick and, if sick, went to hospitals, the emergency room, doctors’ offices and health departments. They lacked medical insurance, and no less than 82 percent took medicine on a permanent basis, but only a small percentage had prescription assistance.
Meanwhile, language posed a major obstacle to their access to health care. Few participated in dental care because of the language barriers and costs, and home remedies were used in close to half of the respondents’ cases.
The clinic-on-wheels has providers who can interact with the Hispanic population, and the informational brochures will feature English and Spanish.
“It’s really a wonderful service,” Orem said. “It does meet a huge, critical need, and a growing need, of a population that, for now, the only option is the hospital emergency room.”
For more information about the mobile health trailer, call Robinson at (815) 753-8996.
A reception recognizing the Outstanding International Educator for 2007 and an appreciation luncheon for faculty members who lead study abroad trips are among the events that will highlight NIU’s celebration of International Education Week.
A joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education, International Education Week will be celebrated on campuses nationwide from Nov. 12-16.
The annual International Recognition Reception will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 13, in the Sky Room of the Holmes Student Center. The event is open to the public.
The Outstanding International Educator Award will be presented to an NIU faculty member who has contributed significantly to international education through his or her teaching, research, public service and student service. International Programs also will honor the department that has made the most significant contribution to the internationalization effort across campus.
Harold Kafer, dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, and Robert Self, acting associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, will speak at the reception. Self, a Fulbright senior scholar who regularly leads study abroad programs to Ireland, was one of two recipients of the 2006 Outstanding International Educator Award.
New this year to International Education Week is an invitation-only luncheon to honor more than 30 faculty members who served as study abroad program directors last year and/or will be leading study abroad programs in the current academic year.
“These faculty members provide NIU students and the institution with a very valuable service by making experiences abroad available in a very user friendly environment,” said Deborah Pierce, executive director of International Programs. “For some students, studying abroad with a trusted NIU professor is the only way they would consider an international experience.”
Other highlights of International Education Week will include a panel discussion titled, “Beyond Hotel Rwanda: Peace Initiatives—Stories from the Field.” The discussion will be held from 11:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 12, in the Fireside Room of Neptune Hall.
Panel members will include Professor Maylan Dunn-Kenney (Teaching and Learning), who will discuss peace-building in Nicaragua; Professor Andrea Molnar (Anthropology), who will talk about grassroots peace initiatives in East Timor and Southern Thailand; and graduate student Michael Tusime (Curriculum and Instruction), who will discuss peace efforts in Rwanda.
The week also will include an installment of the John A. Niemi International Lecture Series. Laurel Jeris, associate professor in the Department of Counseling, Adult and Higher Education, will present the lecture, titled “Two Eyes, Two Ears, and One Mouth: A Cultural-Outsider Reports on Women's Ways of Leading in Sri Lanka.” It will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 13, in Gabel Hall 126.
A full schedule of events for International Education Week is available online at http://www3.niu.edu/intl_prgms/intweek.htm.
Journalist Mark Danner, a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker who has reported for more than two decades on foreign affairs and international conflict, including on the war in Iraq and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, will visit NIU to deliver the next installment of the W. Bruce Lincoln Endowed Lecture Series.
Danner’s NIU lecture, titled “In War’s Dark Shadow: Americans, Terror and the Coming of Endless War,” will be held at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14, in the Altgeld Hall Auditorium. Admission is free, and the lecture is open to the public.
Danner is the recipient of numerous awards for his work, including an Emmy, the National Magazine Award, three Overseas Press Awards and the Carey McWilliams Award presented by the American Political Science Association “to honor a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics.” In 1999, he won a MacArthur Fellowship, the so-called “genius grant.”
Danner’s books include “The Secret Way to War: The Downing Street Memo and the Iraq War’s Buried History” (2006); “Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror” (2004); “The Road to Illegitimacy: One Reporter’s Travels Through the 2000 Florida Vote Recount” (2004); and “The Massacre at El Mozote: A Parable of the Cold War” (1994).
The Endowed Lincoln Lecture Series is named in honor of the late W. Bruce Lincoln, a world-renowned historian of Russia who taught on the NIU faculty for more than three decades until his retirement in 1998.
Lincoln possessed a lifelong passion for learning and a gift for writing. A number of his books gained a wide audience among the general public. The title of Danner’s lecture alludes to one of Lincoln’s books: “In War’s Dark Shadow: The Russians Before the Great War.”
“We’re thrilled to have Mark Danner visit our campus,” said Kenton Clymer, chair of the NIU Department of History. “He is a prominent American journalist whose work shines a light on some of the most pressing foreign policy issues of our time. Mark’s work also epitomizes the approach of Bruce Lincoln, after whom this lecture series is named. Bruce wrote about complex topics in such a way that made his work accessible to the public.”
Danner is also a contributor to The New York Review of Books, and his work has appeared in numerous publications. He has covered events and conflicts in Central America, Haiti, the Balkans and Iraq and the Middle East. He has written extensively about the development of American foreign policy during the late Cold War and afterward, and about violations of human rights during that time.
“He was among the on-camera experts interviewed for Rory Kennedy’s recent HBO documentary, ‘Ghosts of Abu Ghraib,’ in which he talked about the implications of the Bush administration’s failure to observe the Geneva Conventions,” said NIU Communication Professor Jeff Chown.
“His work is impressive both for its timeliness in regard to breaking news as well as the moral authority of his scrutiny,” Chown added. “He published on Abu Ghraib very soon after the news broke, when people were still trying to find frames of reference for what happened.”
In addition to being a journalist, Danner serves as a professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and as the Henry R. Luce Professor of Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College.
The NIU Department of Communication, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School are joining the Department of History as sponsors of the event.
The National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) and the National Orientation Directors Association (NODA) have recognized NIU’s Division of Student Affairs with significant national and regional awards for programmatic and personal accomplishments.
The Asian American Center was recognized nationally as a Bronze Award recipient at the 2006-07 NASPA Excellence Awards program for excellence in the International, Multi-Cultural, Cultural, LGBTQ, Spirituality, Disability category. The center received the Bronze Award, denoting its Peer Mentor Program as the third best program in the nation.
Denise Rode, director of Orientation & First Year Experience, was honored with the Outstanding Contributions to the Orientation Professions Award at NODA’s recent national conference.
Rode has made significant contributions to higher education through her publications, presentations, and active service in promoting excellence in student orientation, at NIU and across the nation. As an additional testament to her commitment to the profession, Rode has served as editor of the “Journal of College Orientation and Transition,” a national publication in the field of orientation, retention and transition.
Donna Schoenfeld, director of Health Enhancement, recently received the Mid-Level Student Affairs Professional Award from NASPA Region IV-East. Schoenfeld has demonstrated an outstanding commitment to the profession and NASPA by serving as chair for the Region IV-E Health in Higher Education Knowledge Community. Schoenfeld was instrumental in implementing LEEEP (Life Enhancing Eating and Exercising Program), a Health Enhancement program that targets traditionally under-represented students.
NASPA Region IV-East also recognized NIU’s Unity in Diversity Steering Committee with the Celebration of Diversity Award. The award is based on an institution’s successful record of achievement in improving the campus climate for diversity through student development programming, personnel practices, equal opportunity, staff development activities and student support services. The Unity in Diversity Steering Committee, which reports directly to the vice president for Student Affairs, is comprised of NIU faculty, staff and students.
A new portfolio assessment program in the undergraduate nursing program is bringing about changes in the curriculum.
Under the leadership of Jeanette Rossetti, chair of the Portfolio Subcommittee; subcommittee members Sharon Coyer, Stacie Elder and Mary Elaine Koren; student members Julie Gebhardt and Hillary Kirschbaum; nursing administrative representative Connie Uhlken; nursing portfolio consultant Julie Robertson; and NIU Writing Across the Curriculum Coordinator Brad Peters, the nursing program launched the new portfolio assessment program for the undergraduate curriculum in the fall 2003 semester.
The Nursing Portfolio Program demonstrates the powerful impact faculty can have on improving the integrity of a curriculum when they come together as a group to assess curricular effectiveness.
Assessment is done on portfolios submitted from students at the end of their junior year to determine how well they are doing in the areas of critical thinking, therapeutic interventions, writing and self reflection. This submission time allows faculty to assess the effectiveness of the foundational nursing courses in preparing students for the important senior year. Feedback also is given to students about the strengths and weaknesses of their portfolios so they can focus on improving in weaker areas during their last academic year in the program.
Nursing faculty come together twice a semester to conduct portfolio assessment which involves three to four hours of faculty time each semester. Portfolio assessment consists of two sessions which are held during general faculty meetings.
The first is a preparatory session in which faculty assess the same two “practice” portfolios using the Nursing Portfolio Program Rubric, followed by a comparison of the faculty ratings. The preparatory session is crucial for ensuring inter-rater reliability. One or two weeks later, the formal assessment of student portfolios takes place. Faculty members assess portfolios in teams. Each portfolio is read and rated by two faculty reviewers according to the criterion on the rubric. If the two ratings differ more than one point, the portfolio will be read by a third faculty reviewer.
Following the reading and ranking of the portfolios, faculty members discuss strengths and weaknesses of the portfolios that were reviewed. It is during these faculty discussions that curricular issues are identified and solutions are considered. Issues also are sent to the Nursing Program Curriculum and Evaluation Committee for follow-up.
Faculty are changing assignments based on these curricular discussions and portfolio assessment findings. For example, the portfolio assessment trend data indicated that students were doing well in the assessment aspects of the nursing process but were weaker in the areas of interventions and evaluation. Consequently, some faculty changed assignments to include interventions and evaluation. As a result, nursing students are obtaining richer classroom experiences and thus benefiting from portfolio assessment findings.
Doug Scott, director of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and former mayor of Rockford, will visit NIU on Wednesday, Nov. 7, to discuss how the state is working to reduce greenhouse gases.
Scott’s presentation, titled “Illinois Initiatives to Reduce Greenhouse Gases and Our Impact on Global Warming,” will begin at 7 p.m. in the Montgomery Hall Auditorium. The event is open to the public.
Sponsored by the Department of Geography, the presentation is a continuation of last spring’s public symposiums on global climate change.
Scott served as a state representative for the 67th District from 1995 to 2001, followed by a four-year term as mayor of Rockford. Gov. Rod Blagojevich appointed him director of the IEPA, effective July 1, 2005. Scott chairs the Illinois Climate Change Advisory Group, which is considering a full range of policies and strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and will make recommendations to the governor.
On the menu at Ellington’s this week: Gusto dell’Italia is scheduled for Tuesday. Lotus takes over Thursday.
Gusto dell’Italia features minestrone and bruschetta for starters, chicken marsala with vegetables and lasagna Florentine for entrees and cannoli and tiramisu for dessert. Each table also will be served Italian flat bread with olive oil and Parmesan cheese.
Lotus features Thai-style sweet corn and parsley soup and green citrus salad with honey-lime dressing for starters, teriyaki beef ribbons and Thai spicy noodles for entrees and sticky rice with mango and green tea with coconut cake for dessert. Each table also will be served sweet Chai Tea over ice.
Seating is from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. with service until 1 p.m. The cost is $8 per person. Ellington’s is located on the main floor of the Holmes Student Center. Call (815) 753-1763 or visit www.ellingtons.niu.edu to make reservations.
The NIU Community School of the Arts invites instrumentalists and vocalists to participate in the annual CSA Sinfonia Concerto Competition.
The winner receives a cash prize and performs with the CSA Sinfonia in the Concert Hall of the NIU Music Building. Applicants must be 18 or younger and live within a 45-mile radius of DeKalb.
The audition date is Sunday, Dec. 9, and takes place before a panel of judges in the NIU Music Building. The music must be one movement of a standard solo concerto or an appropriate one-movement composition. The piece must be memorized and played for the audition with an accompanist. The time limit for auditions is eight minutes.
The postmark application deadline is Friday, Nov. 9. Information and application forms are available from the NIU Community School of the Arts office by calling (815) 753-1450 or online at www.niu.edu/extprograms.
The Friends of the NIU Libraries invite the public to attend a presentation titled, “Schoolhouse Memories: From Sawdust to Quilt,” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14, in the staff lounge on the lower level of Founders Memorial Library.
Lucy Townsend, curator of the Blackwell History of Education Museum at NIU and a professor in the Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations, will discuss memory-making as it relates to local country schools. Light refreshments will be served.
For more information, call (815) 753-8091.
NIU’s Supportive Professional Staff Council is requesting nominations for the Presidential Supportive Professional Staff Award for Excellence.
This award recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the university. All Supportive Professional Staff are eligible. If you have previously nominated an individual, please consider re-nominating them.
Four awards will be presented, and each award will be for the amount of $1,500. In addition, each recipient will receive a plaque in recognition of their accomplishments. To be eligible to receive this award, an employee must be actively employed at the time the award is presented in April 2008.
The nominator is asked to address the following topics in a letter addressed to the SPSC Awards Coordinator:
A completed nomination packet consists of the Nomination Referral Form and four letters: a nomination letter and three letters of support. The support letters must address the above topics. Only these four letters will be considered for each nominee. All nominations must include the nominee’s name and nominator’s name, title and department. Awards will be announced by President Peters in February, and the awards will be presented at a reception hosted by the President, scheduled for April 1. Nominators are responsible for submitting the complete set of nomination materials.
The Nomination Referral Form, nomination letter and letters of support should be sent to Deborah Haliczer, SPSC awards coordinator, and must be received in the Office of Human Resource Services, 1515 W. Lincoln Hwy, by 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 5.
There will be no extensions of the deadline. Direct any questions to Deborah Haliczer at (815) 753-6039 or by e-mail at dhaliczer@niu.edu.
Treat yourself to a New Year’s getaway in London, where old English charm and endless sightseeing await.
This Alumni Association trip includes round-trip airfare, seven nights accommodation in London, ground transportation, daily breakfast, an energetic New Year’s Eve Party, a backstage tour of the Duke of York’s Theatre and two theater performances of your choice.
There is a limited amount of time to book your holiday trip. Visit the alumni Web site www.myniu.com/alumni/travel.html or call (815) 753-1452 soon.
All NIU women, including faculty, staff and students, are invited to a networking luncheon from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, Nov. 16.
Mira Reisberg, assistant professor in the School of Art, will present “Maya Gonzalez: Portrait of the Artist as an Ecofeminist Children’s Book Illustrator” at noon.
Reisberg’s research and teaching practices involve the study of multicultural children’s picture books as a form of visual culture used to support social justice and environmental stewardship.
For her presentation, she will show a short video article titled “Maya Gonzalez: Portrait of the Artist as a Radical Children’s Book Illustrator.” This documentary as qualitative research explores the work and life of Gonzalez, a Chicana lesbian artist, focusing on race, gender and environmental aspects of her work.
The luncheon is held in the Chandelier Room of Adams Hall and costs $8 per person. To make a reservation before Tuesday, Nov. 6, call (815) 753-0320.
NIU’s Art Museum will host several faculty lectures in conjunction with the NIU School of Art Faculty Biennial exhibition, which runs through Saturday, Dec. 8.
The speaker series and exhibition gives the public an opportunity to share in the research, ideas and artwork of NIU School of Art faculty. All lectures will be held at 5 p.m. in Altgeld Hall 315 unless otherwise noted.
The NIU Art Museum is located on the first floor, west end of Altgeld Hall. The galleries are open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and by appointment for group tours.
Exhibitions are free; donations are appreciated. The exhibitions of the NIU Art Museum 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 www.vpa.niu.edu/museum or call (815) 753-1936.