The woman behind the wheel – she’s a diabetic who is not treating her condition – lapses into a high blood sugar coma and crashes her car into another vehicle.
A medical helicopter flies in to transport one of the injured drivers to a trauma center; another is whisked off to a nearby emergency room. Bones are broken, certainly, but what else is wrong? And what are the next steps once doctors and nurses have stabilized their patients?
This scenario (complete with a real chopper and rescue workers) and those questions await about 60 high school students who will arrive on campus Friday morning for the fourth annual Rural Health Careers Camp.
Campers are recruited and invited from small towns across northern Illinois to glimpse jobs in health care in the hopes they will pursue those avenues and return home to live and work.
“It’s been difficult for the health care profession to recruit students from rural communities,” said Alan Robinson, director of outreach for the NIU College of Health and Human Sciences. “Because there are very few role models and not many places to work, they don’t choose the health professions. A few do, but it’s very few.”
The camp’s concept was developed during a 2004 summit in Rockford at the University of Illinois National Center for Rural Health Professions, a co-sponsor. Other sponsors are the NIU colleges of Health and Human Sciences and Education and the Northern Illinois Area Health Education Center. NIU Student Affairs also sponsors students.
Students ranging from incoming freshmen to juniors will sample clinical laboratory sciences, communicative disorders, dietetics, nursing and physical therapy. They also will receive career guidance from a computer program.
New events this year include a trip to Kishwaukee Community Hospital, where the students will view careers outside NIU’s curriculum, and to the university’s anatomy lab where they will take a tour through a human cadaver.
Lighter educational activities also are planned, including a public health pandemic game and a tournament featuring trivia questions from Robinson’s popular Acuity game. The students also will have opportunities for volleyball, billiards, bowling, movies and dance lessons.
When their parents return Sunday morning for the camp finale, counselors from NIU’s offices of admissions and financial aid speak about the path to college.
“We’re trying to get to the kids early so they still have time to go back to their high schools and look at what they’ve signed up for,” Robinson said. “You have to be pretty science-oriented for the health care professions; if these kids have not pursued a second year of biology or chemistry, they should rethink those decisions because they may not qualify for these majors.”
Towns represented this year are Algonquin, Amboy, Belvidere, Byron, Carbon Cliff, Cedarville, Chana, Crystal Lake, Dakota, Davis, DeKalb, Dixon, Durand, East Moline, Freeport, Galva, Genoa, Lake in the Hills, Lanark, Leaf River, Leland, Lena, Mazon, Orangeville, Oregon, Ottawa, Peru, Rochelle, Rock Falls, Rockford, Savanna, Scales Mound, Streator, Winnebago, Winslow and Woodruff.
Students were recruited by guidance counselors and science teachers, Robinson said, and some already were working or volunteering at their local hospitals. “Many of them would probably like to go back to their hometowns to work and live rather than move and work someplace else,” he said.
Although NIU’s camp is limited to students from the top part of the state, its lessons are not.
“Our model is being duplicated in Centralia, Ill., down south, using a community college,” Robinson said. “A hospital there is literally implementing everything we’ve done, including the emergency simulation. The model we’ve developed here is exportable.”
The chair of NIU’s School of Nursing and Health Studies will help to represent Illinois this month at a national workshop organized to examine the nursing shortage and explore ways to expand nursing education.
Brigid Lusk is among nine members of Team Illinois, one of 18 states chosen to participate in the Nursing Education Capacity Summit, scheduled for June 26 and 27 in Arlington, Va. Summit preparation begins Thursday with a mandatory webinar for all participants.
Sponsors are the U.S. Department of Labor, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Center to Champion Nursing and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Participants will share best practices and innovative strategies and develop solutions-based approaches that will boost the ability of nursing schools to educate future nurses. Their discussion will focus on four key aspects for that expansion:
Enormous numbers of students want to pursue nursing careers but schools cannot accommodate them all for lack of classroom space, faculty and clinical locations. NIU alone received about 1,800 applicants this year and can admit less than 10 percent of those, Lusk said.
“We might have enough nurses for today’s needs, but the projection is for a huge increase in patients over the next 20 years. We have a growing elderly population,” Lusk said. “And nursing is a difficult line of work. Some nurses can’t take the stress level. Hospitals need to cover staffing 24-7 and nurses work odd hours.”
According to estimates from the Illinois Center of Nursing, the nursing shortage in the northeast region of Illinois will near 3,000 through the year 2014. The formula calculates a need for up to 4,500 in those six years and a supply of 1,500.
NIU and the State of Illinois are working to increase capacity at nursing schools.
Enrollment in the nursing school will rise this year to 160 – 80 students are admitted each semester – with the addition of two visiting professors. The Office of the Provost is providing eight visiting professors to the College of Health and Human Sciences, Lusk said.
The struggle to locate clinical sites will lessen come August with the opening of a human patient simulation lab, funded through one of three expansion grants from the Illinois Board of Higher Education. That $450,680 in state money also allowed the hiring of one tenure-track professor and two instructors. Now in Year Two, the nursing program has been granted a further $300,000 from the board.
NIU now is creating an accelerated, post-baccalaureate nursing program. Students who already have bachelor’s degrees in other disciplines could begin nursing careers in 18 months.
Meanwhile, a trio of NIU nursing faculty has become fellows of the state’s Nurse Educator Fellowship Program. The initiative, which began in December of 2006, awards $10,000 to its honorees to ensure the retention of well-qualified nursing educators.
IBHE members recognized the school for its outreach to working nurses who wish to complete bachelor’s degrees or master’s degrees while still maintaining job and family responsibilities. Partners include community colleges and hospitals.
“NIU really is concerned about the workforce shortage in nursing and wants to contribute,” Lusk said. “We’ve been a vocal player in several regional efforts to address the shortage.”
Teams for 49 states applied to participate in the national summit. The other states invited to send teams are Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Members of Team Illinois include representatives from the Illinois Center for Nursing, St. Francis Medical Center, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, the Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council, the Chicago Community Trust, Connect SI (a project manager of nursing workforce initiatives in southern Illinois), Lewis and Clark Community College and Partners in Nursing for Central Illinois.
Joanne Dempsey, executive director of the Illinois Council on Economic Education at NIU, has been selected to serve as the faculty leader for the National Council on Economic Education’s (NCEE) Study Tour on Economic Education in the Republic of South Africa in July and August.
The study tour is an activity of the Cooperative Education Exchange Program (CEEP) conducted by the NCEE with funding from the U.S. Department of Education and carried out in coordination with the U.S. Department of State.
Dempsey will co-lead the tour for 12 U.S. educators selected to take part in this program. The teacher participants come from Illinois and 10 other states, including Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas.
After a pre-departure program in Washington, D.C., the group will travel to two provinces in South Africa – Free State and KwaZulu Natal. They are scheduled to visit schools, observe teacher training activities and meet with provincial Department of Education officials, educational administrators and business leaders.
Through the study tour, participants will:
“This is a wonderful opportunity for learning and exchanging ideas, and I look forward to speaking with my counterparts in South Africa and interacting with their students,” Dempsey said.
After returning from the study tour, teachers participating in the program will incorporate the experience into their teaching of economics, conduct workshops and give presentations to local civic groups.
The Illinois Council on Economic Education has sponsored international classroom partnerships for four years, connecting Illinois teachers with educators from other countries. Currently, three teachers in Illinois are partnered with four teachers in Romania.
ICEE is a non-profit organization housed in NIU Outreach.
An affiliate of the National Council on Economic Education, ICEE strives to promote economic and financial literacy education throughout K-12 schools in Illinois. It provides professional development, programs, curriculum resources and hands-on activities for use in the classroom.
Construction crews will continue working to install chilled water lines beneath Normal Road this week, with work mostly in the area Swen Parson Hall and Adams Hall.
Work on the project will continue throughout the summer, and Normal Road is expected to remain closed until Aug. 1. Parking Lot 10, where construction materials are being staged, will remain closed.
Pedestrian crossings will be maintained throughout the project, though the location of crosswalks might change periodically.
Caution is urged when walking or driving around any of the construction work due to heavy equipment and truck traffic. Work is scheduled between the hours of 6:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
Parking permits for the 2008-09 academic year are on sale.
The price of the permits for faculty and staff increased by $15, while prices for student parking permits increased by $10. A blue, non-reserve parking permit now costs $100 a year, and permits reserving parking spaces between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. now sell for $580. (The price of a reserved permit was incorrectly reported in last week’s Northern Today.) Student permits now will range in price from $37 to $75 per year for non-reserve permits (depending on type) and $395 for reserve permits.
“We regret having to raise the fees so dramatically, but sharply rising costs and a lack of other funding alternatives leave us with little choice,” said Sam Baker, chair of the Campus Parking Committee.
Permits can be purchased in person at the Parking Services office on the corner of Normal Road and Lincoln Terrace or ordered via campus mail using the form sent to all current permit holders.
New permits must be displayed beginning July 1.
What are the secrets of effective meetings?
The next CLA workshop, scheduled for Thursday, will offer participants an experience of the dynamics of individual and group relations and formal and informal power structures that define the social exercise of “meeting.”
Participants will explore techniques and skills for improving meeting dynamics that develop better understandings between and within individuals and groups who interact at meetings. They also will be exposed to a living workshop of democratic processes, including such activities as mock discussions and actions using parliamentary procedures.
Topics will include guidelines for setting agendas, understanding individual roles, good meeting preparation and distribution of support materials.
Greg Kuhn, senior research associate at NIU’s Center for Governmental Studies, is the presenter.
Registration and more information are available online.
Travel the world with song this summer at the CSA Choral Camp offered by the NIU Community School of the Arts. This year’s theme is folk music from around world, with pieces from Russia, Scotland, Israel, Jamaica and the United States.
The CSA Choral Camp is for children ages 8 to 13 and meets the week of June 16. The camp is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and concludes with a gala concert for family and friends.
Campers are assigned to choirs by age and rehearse with their choir twice each day. In addition, they attend classes in singing, drumming, movement and reading music. All classes are held in the Music Building.
The camp director is NIU faculty member Mary Lynn Doherty. She directed the CSA Choral Camp in its debut summer last year and will direct the CSA Children’s Choir that begins this fall. She brings a wealth of experience and talent to the camp, and is joined by DeKalb High School choral conductor Travis Erikson.
For more information about this camp or about the many other arts opportunities for children and adults at the community school this summer, call (815) 753-1450. More information is available on-line at www.niu.edu/extprograms.
Music classes for very young children begin this month at the NIU Community School of the Arts. Children can enjoy general music classes or a group piano class. All three classes are taught in the Music Building.
The community school offers two classes for children ages 1 to 6 beginning June 18. Teacher Laurie Rodriguez brings many years of teaching experience to these fun music and movement classes. A parent or guardian joins the fun in both classes.
Prelude Class for ages 1 to 3 is held Wednesdays from 5:45 to 6:15 p.m. Come sing, dance, play and discover. Children explore and delight in the sights and sounds of our world through music listening, creative movement, songs and lap games.
Children ages 3 to 6 can join the Development Class from 6:20 to 6:50 p.m. Wednesdays. Explore the world around you and learn musical patterns and skills through games, songs, creative movement, playing percussion instruments and learning about some of the instruments of the orchestra. Three-year-olds attending CSA music classes for the first time should take Prelude first.
Piano Players is a group piano class for children ages 6 to 8 held from 2 to 3 p.m. Tuesdays. Children are introduced to the piano in a playful and creative environment. Each class is limited to four students. Teacher Barbara Wirz-Ellsworth has extensive experience teaching young children. The class begins June 10.
To learn more about these and the many other summer offerings for children and adults at the NIU Community School of the Arts, call Renee Page at (815) 753-1450. More information is available online at www.niu.edu/extprograms.
Middle school band members are invited to join the CSA Summer Band this summer. Enjoy playing fun music and have a great time with other young musicians. This first-time program is offered by the NIU Community School of the Arts.
The band is for young players who have recently completed grades 6, 7 or 8. The focus of the band is on strengthening playing and ensemble techniques. Members receive individual attention in small sectional rehearsals. DeKalb High School band director Reuben Cooper will be a guest clinician. Members are expected to have at least six months playing experience.
The band meets from 9:30 - 11 a.m. Mondays and Wednesdays beginning June 16.
Teacher Diana Zaleski is a music educator and band instructor in the DeKalb public schools. She has a bachelor’s degree in music education from Millikin University and is a graduate student at NIU.
More information about this and the many other summer offerings for children and adults at the NIU Community School of the Arts is available by calling the office at (815) 753-1450 or online at www.niu.edu/extprograms.
NIU alumnus David J. Zoberis Sr. will display his new works and some older favorites at the DeKalb Area Women’s Center (DAWC) during June. Zoberis earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from NIU in 2006.
The exhibit will feature watercolors of northern Illinois scenes along with a preview of one oil painting from a series of 1930s Chicago transportation scenes designed for an upcoming solo installation scheduled for October in Lincolnwood. Some of the original artworks also can be viewed at the Web site, http://www.art-exchange.com. Zoberis can be contacted at zobiesartworks@verizon.net.
The public is invited to view this collection of paintings June 10 through June 27. The DAWC is open for public viewing from 7 to 9 p.m. Fridays, from 6 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, June 10, and by appointment throughout the month. An artist’s reception will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday, June 21.
The DAWC is located at 1021 State Street in DeKalb. Parking is available in the paved lot off of Eleventh Street, one-half block south of the building. The handicapped-accessible lift can be reached from the alley north of the building. For further information, or to arrange a group showing, call Anna Marie Coveny, gallery director, at (815) 758-1351 or (815) 761-1735.
Paul Gill, a graduate student in physics, will present “Exploring the Unknowns in Our Reality” at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 10. The free lecture takes place in Room 200 of Faraday West.
Gill will present several current puzzles in science, from the world of quantum physics to string theory, anti matter to dark matter, black holes to bending time and parallel worlds to hidden dimensions. An expertise or background in science is not required to enjoy the discussion and exploration of these topics.
Gill has taught science classes and given lectures at Harper College and the College of DuPage over the past four years.
NIU’s Alumni Association will thank NIU faculty and staff for their support and dedication to the university by offering two-for-one pricing for two upcoming Chicago White Sox games Friday, June 13, or Tuesday, July 1.
Join the Alumni Association in a private suite featuring indoor and outdoor open seating and continuous buffet and bar starting at 6 p.m. through the seventh inning stretch. Packages cost $125 and include two game tickets, all food and beverages and a wonderful atmosphere. Join us on Friday, June 13 or Tuesday, July 1 for an exciting baseball reception.
Call (815) 753-1452 to order.
Discover Dalmatia’s ruggedly beautiful, island-dominated shoreline on this touring itinerary which takes travelers from Dubrovnik in southern most Croatia to Ljubljana, the beautiful capital city in Slovenia.
The trip begins Sept. 19.
The Dalmatian Coast offers an unmatched collection of Roman ruins, medieval towns, gorgeous rivieras, picturesque lakes, mountain views and idyllic islands. Visitors step back in time at beautiful Dubrovnik, an architectural gem that is more than 1,000 years old.
More information about this and other NIU Alumni Association Travel Programs is available online.
Portions of the campus parking deck will be closed through June 15 for maintenance.
During this time, crews will clean, seal and stripe the pavement in the parking deck. At any given time during this period, two levels will be closed while three will remain open for parking.
There is a possibility that the entire parking deck will close on the weekends of June 6 through June 8 and June 13 through June 15 to ensure that striping is completed and dried by the start of summer classes.
Housing and Dining staff and its partners are working hard to coordinate the best Opening Day Team ever. Nearly 4,000 students will arrive at NIU for Opening Day – Thursday, Aug. 21 – and approximately 3,000 of these will be new students.
Join the Opening Day Team to ensure that students will remember their arrival on campus as a day filled with welcoming smiles and helping hands. Be the face of NIU for each student you greet, for each student you assist with a bulky suitcase or box and for each student you aid with a cold drink on that hot and busy day.
Be a part of a great Huskie welcome to our students on Opening Day. To volunteer, visit http://www.housing.niu.edu and click on the Team NIU link.