NIU faculty eager to win federal stimulus money that would support their existing research and development funds must position themselves for grant competition.
To that end, the Office of Sponsored Projects will host an informational presentation Tuesday, April 21, on issues of federal stimulus money. Sessions are scheduled from 1 to 3 p.m. in the Regency Room of the Holmes Student Center.
Presentations focused on mathematics, physical sciences and engineering will take place between 1 and 2 p.m. Information on education and social, behavioral and health sciences, as well as on state and foundation funding, will be covered between 2 and 3 p.m.
The Federal Stimulus Package (ARRA), the FY09 federal budget and the FY10 federal budget all contain significant new funds to support university-based research and development efforts.
The ARRA alone will add roughly 30 percent ($21.5 billion) to research and development funding available in the coming year. The federal FY09 research and development budget calls for $151 billion in spending for the rest of the fiscal year.
If NIU is competitive, the university could see an increase in federal research funding of as much as $4 million.
Tuesday’s sessions are open to all faculty in order to direct them to funding possibilities available through the ARRA, key funding possibilities in the FY09 budget and an overview of the FY10 budget to help faculty begin to think ahead for next year.
Presentations will cover the NSF, NIH, DOD, DHS, NASA, Department of Energy, USDA, Department of Education, Department of Commerce, Department of Transportation, DOJ and HUD as well as discussions of funds that might be available through the State of Illinois and the outlook for funding from foundations for the coming year.
Slide presentations will be posted on the OSP Web site after presentations are given.
Call (815) 753-1581 for more information.
The NIU community is invited to the 2009 Faculty Awards Ceremony and Reception, scheduled from 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesday, April 28, in the Altgeld Hall auditorium. The recognition ceremony begins at 4 p.m.
This event honors the newly named Presidential Teaching Professors, Presidential Research Professors, the recipients of the Board of Trustees Professorships as well as the Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching award recipients and the Excellence in Undergraduate Instruction award recipient.
For more information, call (815) 753-1999.
On the menu at Ellington’s this week: Isla del Sabor is scheduled for Tuesday. Bem Vindos! takes over Thursday.
Continuing this semester is the option to enjoy wine with your meal. One red and one white wine choice will be available with meal service. Wine will be selected for the menu based on wine-and-food pairings made by the students. Wine selections will range from $4.50 to $6.50 per glass.
Isla del Sabor features Caribbean sweet potato and black bean salad or callaloo soup for starters, spiced chops with mango-mint salsa or grilled tofu in Caribbean coconut curry marinade for entrees and key lime meringue pie or mango sorbet for dessert. Each table also will be served Caribbean salsa with blue tortilla chips.
Bem Vindos! features creamy hearts of palm soup or Brazilian potato salad for starters, black beans and turkey stew or sweet potato-stuffed eggplant for entrees and coconut custard or tropical dessert for dessert. Each table also will be served French loaf and butter.
Seating is from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. with service until 1 p.m. The cost is $9 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.
NIU’s Jazz Lab Band will present its last concert of the spring 2009 season at 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 21, in the Boutell Memorial Concert Hall.
The program will feature Tom Garling, jazz trombonist and a member of the School of Music faculty. Music on the program includes works by Thad Jones, Bob Brookmeyer, Horace Silver, Bobby Watson, Pam Watson, Ernesto Lecuona, Phil Kelly and Bill Holman.
The concert is free and open to the public, and the building is accessible to all. Call (815) 753-1546 for more information.
NIU’s New Music Ensemble will present “Natural Rhythm, Colorful Spirit,” a concert of music by Olivier Messiaen, at 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 22, in the Boutell Memorial Concert Hall.
Messiaen’s idiosyncratic musical output was dominated by basic and fundamental concerts that reflected his own passions in life: non-retrogradable rhythms; colorful harmonies based on his own system of modes of limited transportation; the observation of the bounty of Earth’s nature, especially his well-known use of the rapid-fire gestures inherent in birdsong, something he spent hours transcribing and using directly in his music; and his deep-seated Catholic faith.
NME will perform six works that represent more than 30 years of Messiaen’s musical output. School of Music professor Brian Hart, a specialist in the music of 19th and 20th century France, will give a pre-concert lecture at 7 p.m.
The concert is free and open to the public, and the building is accessible to all. Call (815) 753-1546 for more information.
Join NIU’s Lifelong Learning Institute on an exciting field trip exploring some gems of Chicago’s North Shore.
Travelers will visit the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian, the only museum in the Chicago area that focuses exclusively on the history, culture and arts of the native people of North America.
Another stop will be the Baha’i House of Worship for the North American Continent in Wilmette. Like all Baha’i houses of worship, the temple in Wilmette has nine sides and a dome and is surrounded by exquisite gardens and fountains.
At the Block museum, the special exhibit on Gordon Parks (1912-2006) will be on display. Parks served as a staff photographer for Life magazine from 1945 to 1975, capturing images from all walks of American society, from the struggle for civil rights to the glamour of Hollywood stars.
The trip will depart from the Normal Road entrance of the Holmes Student Center at 7:30 a.m. Friday, May 8, and return at approximately 6:30 p.m. The fee includes entrance costs and transportation. Lunch is on your own at Northwestern University’s cafeteria.
A minimum of 20 registrants is needed by Friday, April 24, to offer this trip.
The trip is open to everyone in the community; LLI members, NIU Cardinal & Black Alumni members and University Women’s Club members are eligible for a discounted rate.
For more information, or to register, contact the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences External Programming at (815) 753-5200, online at http://www.LLI.niu.edu or in person at Room 152 of the Monat Building, 148 N. Third St. in DeKalb.
The NIU Steelband, under the direction of Cliff Alexis and Liam Teague, will present its spring concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 26, in the Boutell Memorial Concert Hall.
Musical selections include Alexis’ arrangements of “Magic Drum” and “The Ten Commandments” as well as the celebrated Panorama arrangements of “Pan By Storm” and “Birthday Party.”
Guest conductors Ronnie Wooten and Alexis Janners will direct “Poet and Peasant Overture” and “Concierto para Quintero,” adapted by NIU graduate student Yuko Asada.
NIU’s Robert Chappell will perform his “Open Window” for steelpan and marimba with Teague. Mia Gormandy, one of the winners of the 2009 NIU Concerto Competition, will play Jan Bach’s “Concerto for Steelpan and Orchestra.”
The concert is free and open to the public, and the building is accessible to all. Call (815) 753-1546 for more information.
NIU’s Art Museum will present “Assessing Exhibition Excellence,” a lecture by Deborah Wood, at 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 29, in the South Gallery.
Wood is senior curator at the Block Museum, Northwestern University, where she takes the leading role in developing the museum’s exhibitions and collections.
Since her arrival in 1999, she has focused on 20th century art and the history and study of prints. Her prior experience includes work at the Elvehjem Museum of Art (now called the Chazen Museum of Art) in Madison, Wis.; the Baltimore Museum of Art in Maryland; and an assistant professorship of art at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. She earned a B.F.A. from Cornell University and an M.F.A. in printmaking from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Wood will discuss exhibition education while addressing the exhibition “Moonlight Cocktails are the Thing,” which attempts to summarize a lifetime of remarkable achievements by printmaker David Driesbach. Driesbach, a former professor of art at NIU, creates prints that contain rich narratives and are complex, colorful and whimsical.
“Moonlight Cocktails are the Thing” was co-organized with students enrolled in “Exhibition Interpretation” a graduate-level Museum Studies course.
Located on the west-end first floor of Altgeld Hall, the galleries are open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and by appointment for group tours. Exhibitions and lectures 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.niu.edu/artmuseum or call (815) 753-1936.
Friends of the NIU Libraries invites the public to attend its third annual Book Appraisal Fair from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday, May 3, in the Rare Books and Special Collections Department on the fourth floor of Founders Memorial Library.
Members of the Friends of NIU Libraries will receive their first three books appraised free of charge, with additional appraisals at a rate of $5 each. Appraisals for non-members will cost $10.
“We will gladly accept new members that day for non-members who wish to take advantage of the ‘member rate’ for appraisals,” said Lynne Thomas, faculty liaison to the Friends of NIU Libraries and head of Rare Books and Special Collections.
Thomas Joyce of Thomas J. Joyce & Company and the Chicago Rare Book Center, who has also appeared on HGTV’s “Appraisal Fair,” and Bill Butts of Main Street Fine Books in Galena, will serve as book appraisers. Joyce specializes in printed books, and Butts has extensive experience in appraising autographs and other ephemeral materials.
Proceeds from the event will benefit the Friends of the NIU Libraries. For more information on the Book Appraisal Fair, call (815) 753-8091.
NIU’s College of Education is hosting a retirement party for Nina Dorsch from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 12, in the Sky Room of the Holmes Student Center.
Dorsch is co-chair and associate professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning. The program will begin at 3:30 p.m.
Members of the NIU Annuitants Association and fans of “A Prairie Home Companion,” broadcast each weekend on 89.5 FM-WNIJ, have the opportunity to see Garrison Keillor and watch a nationally broadcast performance Saturday, June 20, at the Ravinia Festival.
The group departs DeKalb at 1:30 p.m. and will have time at the festival grounds to visit one of the restaurants or enjoy a picnic before taking their seats in the pavilion for the 4:45 p.m. show. The group will depart the festival grounds in Highland Park about 7:15 p.m. to return to DeKalb.
Space and more information are available from Steven Johnson at sjohnso11@niu.edu. More details about the NIU Annuitants Association can be found at www.niu.edu/annuitants.
The final exhibit of the 2008-2009 gallery season is a significant show of drawings and prints at the Nehring Gallery, in the historic bank building on the corner of Lincoln Highway and Second Street in downtown DeKalb.
“P2: Peter Squared” is a collection of contemporary artwork by NIU artists Peter Olson and Peter Van Ael that was assembled to coincide with the Southern Graphics Council, held last month in Chicago.
Olson, assistant director of the NIU Art Museum in Altgeld Hall, holds a master’s degree in printmaking and has accumulated a wide record of exhibitions. He works with an ornithological theme conveying a sense of his vast knowledge of species found in Illinois, Oregon and Costa Rica. Visit www.peterolsonbirds.com for more information.
Olson will share his expertise in bird walks from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. on two upcoming Sundays: May 3 at Afton Forest Preserve on Crego Road, and May 10 at Wilkinson-Renwick Marsh on Annie Glidden Road.
Van Ael, coordinator of the Jack Olson Gallery on the second floor of the NIU Visual Arts Building, comes to residency in Illinois with an extensive exhibition record from Belgium and throughout the United States. Van Ael’s specialty is reduction wood cuts in which the wood block is carved, inked and printed; it then is further carved to develop the design in layers of intense hues. For more information and visuals, visit www.petervanael.com.
The public is invited to a free reception to meet the two artists from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 16, and to participate in their gallery talks beginning at 5:00 p.m. Additional viewing hours are from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays, from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturdays through May 2, and by appointment at (815) 758-1351.
Artworks are available for purchase from the artists, and a drawing for one print by Olson and one by Van Ael will be held to benefit the gallery.
Free parking is available on-street and in the city lots to the south. Entrance is under the logo awning at 111 S. Second Street to use the stairs or elevator to the second floor. All ages are welcome.
NIU’s Latino Resource Center will host “Crime Against Humanity,” a play presented by the Latino Cultural Awareness Committee and based on the real life experiences of 14 Puerto Rican political prisoners who spent more than two decades in prisons for seditious conspiracy.
Discover what these prisoners endured to raise consciousness and support for the campaign to free the remaining Puerto Rican political prisoners.
The event takes place from 7 to 10 p.m. Tuesday, April 21, in the Holmes Student Center, Room 506. Admission is free and open to all. For more information, contact (815) 753-1986 or www.niu.edu/lrc.
All business managers and departments are advised that the NIU PeopleSoft financial system will be down from the close of business Thursday, April 23, through Monday, April 27, for required software and system maintenance.
Journals, budget journals, purchase orders, vouchers, checks and student refunds, etc., will not be processed on these business days. Campus queries also will not be available.
Access to financial and budget reports, accounting and procurement forms via the Web will not be affected by the outage. Normal operations should resume Tuesday, April 28.
NIU’s Interdisciplinary Institute for the Study of Language & Literacy will host a talk with Timothy Shanahan, director of the Center for Literacy at UIC.
Shanahan will discuss “Disciplinary Literacy: Teaching the Literacy of History, Chemistry, & Mathematics” at 4 p.m. Friday, April 24, in Room 2305 of the NIU Wellness & Literacy Center, 3100 Sycamore Road.
For more information, call (815) 753-5793 or e-mail iisll@niu.edu.
Fans of “A Prairie Home Companion,” broadcast each weekend on 89.5 FM-WNIJ, might be interested in a new feature-length documentary which looks behind the scenes and inside the imagination of the man who created it: Garrison Keillor.
WNIJ presents an exclusive sneak-preview of this new film by Peter Rosen at the Sycamore Theater, 420 W. State St. in Sycamore.
Show times are 5:30 p.m. Friday, April 24, 10:30 a.m. Saturday, April 25, and noon Sunday, April 26. Admission is $4 per person, and all ticket proceeds from these weekend screenings benefit the station. In addition, the back side of WNIJ’s souvenir movie pass lists several Sycamore vendors offering money-saving specials to ticket holders.
More details about the documentary can be found at www.wnij.org.
The NIU Women’s Rights Alliance will host a benefit production of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues,” raising funds for the Women’s Rights Alliance and V-Day
The production takes place in the Barsema Auditorium inside Barsema Hall. Show times are 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 24, and Saturday, April 25, and 2 p.m. Sunday, April 26. Tickets are $5 for students and senior citizens and $7 for the general public and are sold at the door.
For more information, contact niuwra@gmail.com.
Calling all sellers of antiques, collectibles, sports cards, crafts and garage sale items.
The NIU Convocation Center will host the first “Convo’s Colossal Clean Sweep” from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, May 2, and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, May 3. Admission is $1 for adults and free for children ages 6 and younger.
Vendors are encouraged to register by Monday, April 27, with the added incentive of a 10 percent discount for those who register by Friday, April 17. All NIU students with a valid NIU OneCard will receive a 15 percent rental fee discount. Only indoor space is available for rent.
To reserve your spot, download a registration form or visit the Convocation Center ticket office. For more details, call (815) 752-6800.
Volunteers are needed Saturday, May 9, to assist with NIU Athletics’ Inaugural Track and Field Meet. E-mail Sue Hansfield at shansfield@niu.edu with name and contact information.
The NIU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences External Programming will sponsor a trip Wednesday, June 3, to Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” performed at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier.
Depart from the Normal Road entrance of the Holmes Student Center at 2 p.m. and return at approximately 12:30 a.m. Explore Navy Pier and enjoy dinner on your own before the performance begins at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $85 or $55 for students. Fee includes theater ticket and transportation. Parking is available at the NIU visitor parking lot for a $5 fee.
For more information, contact (815) 753-5200 or LASEP@niu.edu.
The Division of Research and Graduate Studies will hold its Outstanding Graduate Student Reception from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 22, in the Duke Ellington Ballroom of the Holmes Student Center.
An awards ceremony will be held at 4 p.m. to honor students who are receiving the following awards: the Carter G. Woodson Fellowship, Jeffrey T. Lunsford Fellowship, Dissertation Completion Award, University Fellowship, Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois Award and the Outstanding Graduate Student Award.
Graduate faculty and advisers are encouraged to attend the event. Refreshments will be served.
Registration is open for ACT test prep scheduled for four Saturdays in May.
Classes meet from 9 a.m. to noon May 9, May 16, May 23 and May 30 in the Monat Building, 148 N. Third St. in DeKalb.
The program covers English, math, reading and science reasoning. The final session covers a sample testing of an actual retired ACT test and scoring.
Cost is $175 (or $200 one week before start of class) and includes instruction, textbook, CD-ROM and retired ACT tests. It does not include registration to take the actual ACT test.
For more information, contact Mark Pietrowski at (815) 753-1456 or pietrowski@niu.edu.
Students are now able to apply for the NIU Speech Camp, Creative Writing Camp, Film Camp, Sci-Camp Discovery, Sci-Camp Explorations, Sci-Camp Investigations and, for the first time, the KEMPA Journalism Workshop.
The camps allow students to explore topics of interest to them, experience life on a college campus and have fun learning.
The camp fees include room and board. An early bird discount applies until June 1, but parents and students are urged to apply as soon as possible to guarantee spots in their camps of choice.
A full application packet is available for download at www.niu.edu/clasep under Academic Summer Camps.
For more camp details, contact Mark Pietrowski at (815) 753-1456 or pietrowski@niu.edu or visit www.niu.edu/clasep.
Experience the cultural explosion and natural beauty of Iceland with the NIU Alumni Association from July 20 to July 26.
Where else can travelers witness such marvels as a tremendous icecap and slow grinding glaciers, spouting geysers, magnificent waterfalls, a multitude of birds, cavorting whales just offshore and fearless little puffins? Meanwhile, because of Iceland’s endless supply of geothermal energy, pollution is nonexistent.
Visit myniu.com or call (815) 753-1512 for more information.
Nearly one dozen programs and activities are planned throughout the month to raise awareness of and help bring an end to sexual assault and other forms of relationship violence.
“This month is designed to create many different avenues for people to discuss and learn about issues surrounding sexual violence,” said Andrea Drott, health educator for NIU’s Health Enhancement. “Everyone is encouraged to support the events and be a part of the solution.”
A complete schedule of discussions, performances and other activities is available online.
Events include:
All events are open to the public and, unless otherwise noted, are free. Sign language interpreters will be provided upon request; call (815) 753-6515. One week’s notice is preferred.
Event sponsors include NIU Health Enhancement; Men Against Sexual and Interpersonal Violence; Women’s Resource Center; Women’s Rights Alliance; PRSSA; Women’s Studies; and Safe Passage.
For more information, call Health Enhancement at (815) 753-9767.