With proof of “real and sustainable” interest across the university and among the public in improving teaching and learning from preschool through graduate school, NIU has launched the Center for P-20 Engagement.
Lemuel W. Watson, dean of the College of Education, serves as executive director.
He envisions a serious dialogue across colleges and a collaborative pursuit of grants that will shine a light on societal issues and economic development and combines university and community expertise for the greater good.
“I’m excited about this opportunity. My intent is to become a key spokesperson for the university as we engage with communities and businesses to share knowledge about teaching and learning, create classical experiences for students and faculty and bring folks together around these critical issues,” said Watson, who adds this responsibility to his current duties as dean.
“I believe NIU is in a wonderful position to maintain its lead in the state and the region on P-20 initiatives and on building partnerships with community colleges, businesses and other community agencies,” he added. “The goal of the Center for P-20 Engagement is to be a place where we can connect people, facilitate dialogue and enhance everyone’s work.”
The center is indeed “a portal to NIU’s P-20 knowledge, expertise, and resources for educational organizations, business and industry, and community agencies,” Provost Raymond Alden wrote in an Aug. 5 letter to campus leaders.
“NIU has built a foundation of activities and relationships that will flourish in the context of reciprocity and mutual benefit that characterizes engagement,” Alden wrote. “The center will offer support for building engagement through thoughtful collaboration and partnerships and will strive to connect public needs to NIU’s hundreds of field-oriented P-20 projects and services.”
An outgrowth of six years of work on P-20 projects under the umbrella of the P-20 Task Force, ideas for a permanent center gained widespread support during the recent strategic planning process, NIU’s center will pursue three objectives:
Participants in the P-20 network will gain connections to internal and external activities and partners along with facilitation of meetings, strategic planning and project management. They will also be able to count access to public relations, identity development and Web site support for their projects.
In his role as executive director, Watson reports to Vice Provost Earl “Gip” Seaver and Anne C. Kaplan, vice president for Outreach and University Administration. Seaver and Kaplan are co-chairs of the P-20 Task Force.
“The various activities we’ve undertaken in P-20 certainly have grown tremendously. Our institution is looked at as a leader,” Seaver said. “This new center is a great way to coordinate our efforts and to continue to move forward in engaging with individuals and programs external to NIU.”
Kaplan said the center will provide greater visibility to existing P-20 projects and stimulate and encourage future ventures. Marilyn Bellert, executive assistant to Kaplan and the key staff person for the P-20 Task Force, will continue to play that role as the center’s associate director.
“The experience that we’ve had over the past six years showed us there is more than enough interest to justify a permanent structure. We put up the flag that is P-20, and all kinds of people rushed onto the field,” Kaplan said.
Now those people, all of whom possess bright and possibly complimentary ideas, will find avenues for collaboration as well as the support system that produce a fruitful harvest.
“That snowball effect just doesn’t happen if everyone is off doing their own things,” Kaplan said, “no matter how good those things are.”
Watson and Bellert will welcome faculty and staff to a campus-wide meeting next month where they will explain how the center will operate and invite their participation.
A recent delegate to the Engagement Academy for University Leaders in Roanoke, Va., Watson also will spell out the importance of “reciprocity” between town and gown.
“Part of the criticism from the public is, ‘What’s important about higher education if it’s not enhancing communities, imparting knowledge and learning from that reciprocal process with the field?’ We need to be the ones who are leading in many ways,” he said, “preparing students to go back to their communities to enhance them and asking faculty to share what they’re learning in the field and from the field.”
His four dean colleagues who sit with him on the P-20 Task Force already are excited.
“NIU not only established the concept of P-20 in the state but has been a leader in bringing five colleges at NIU together to address learning and teaching needs of the community,” said Promod Vohra, dean of the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology. “P-20 brings the synergies of researchers at NIU and empowers them through collaboration and partnership.”
“The opening of the NIU P-20 Center couldn’t have come at a better time,” added Rich Holly, dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts. “The education faculty and students in the College of Visual and Performing Arts become engaged in more and broader education-related activities each year, and the center will enable us to integrate and collaborate with many more constituencies, both on- and off-campus.”
The other deans involved are Christopher McCord (Liberal Arts and Sciences) and Shirley Richmond (Health and Human Sciences).
For more information about the center, contact Bellert at (815) 753-8051 or mbellert@niu.edu.
Harvey Smith, director of NIU’s Interactive Illinois Report Card, is hopeful that the center’s coordination of P-20 activities will help high schools, community colleges and four-year colleges and universities “begin to think about teaching and learning as a more synchronized, continuous learning process.”
Academic development of students as individuals is currently “hampered” because assessment and learning measurement is not continuous, Smith said. Measurements of performance of elementary school students “do not really align” with measurements of their performance when high school students, he said.
“Then, after high school, that information totally falls off the cliff because there’s no systematic, easy linking of information about high school learning performance and preparedness for college,” Smith said. “We’re just flying too much in the dark on that.”
Why? “There is as yet no statewide database that carries forward all of the information regarding their performance data into the college arena,” he said.
As a result, colleges have comparatively little detailed understanding of a student’s individual skills and needs.
“The really exciting benefit of a P-20 perspective is that the state is now moving to provide a continuous stream of information that will allow educators at all levels to improve teaching and learning,” Smith said. “We have begun to think together to address strategies that work across the spectrum.”
NIU’s P-20 center is a big step in the right direction in which higher education will play a bigger role in coordinating the entire process, Smith said. “As the final destination in many students’ educational careers, universities are uniquely situated to be institutional leaders in this vital mission.”
Lemuel W. Waston, dean of the College of Education, invites the campus community to its Gala Celebration fundraiser to support the college’s programs and students.
The celebration takes place from 5:30 p.m. to midnight Saturday, Aug. 29, in the Barsema Alumni and Visitors Center. The cost is $100 per person and $175 per couple, including two drink tickets per person.
The evening will include cocktails and heavy hors d’oeuvres, a silent and live auction, dancing and cordials on the patio at the evening’s end. The dress is cocktail attire (black tie optional).
RSVP to Gail Hayenga at (815) 753-8370 or via e-mail at ghayenga@niu.edu by Friday, Aug. 21.
The Community Dance School at NIU, sponsored by the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education, will begin its fall 12-week session Monday, Sept. 14. Classes meet weekly until Dec. 18.
Instruction is offered for ages four through teen and adult. Classes include creative movement, ballet, lyrical, modern, tap, jazz, Irish step dancing, Scottish Highland dancing, jazz/hip hop, ballroom, Latin and swing.
Students are taught by NIU faculty and instructors who hold degrees in dance education, have danced professionally or are currently dance performance majors at NIU. Meredith Lutz, a former Scottish Highland dancing competitor, will teach Scottish Highland dancing, and Bryn Wilke, with the Mayer School of Irish Dancing, will teach Irish soft and hard shoe. Barbara Heimerdinger, an NIU faculty member, will teach ballroom, Latin and swing.
Registration will be held Saturdays (Aug. 22, Aug. 29 and Sept. 5) from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Anderson Hall, Studio 130. The cost for each class is $95. For more information, call (815) 753-0277 or (815) 756-4092.
The DeKalb Festival Chorus – a volunteer, auditioned chorus of 55 voices – is ready to welcome new singers.
Rehearsals are scheduled Monday evenings on the NIU campus.
The fall concert (Sunday, Dec. 13) will include works by Lauridsen, Parker, Biebl and Thompson, as well as Rutter’s “Gloria” performed with the Prairie Brass Band. In late spring (Saturday, May 8), the chorus will perform Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms.”
Call (630) 453-8006 or e-mail festivalchorus@gmail.org to schedule an audition Monday, Aug. 24, or at a time to be arranged with Director Jen Whiting. For more information, visit http://www.dekalbfestivalchorus.org.
NIU’s Academic Advising Center has moved to a new location on campus between the parking deck and the library at 633 W. Locust St. Access is limited through Tuesday, Aug. 11.
The center serves students who are undecided about their major and without a current college affiliation or who are seeking alternative majors or reassessing their current academic situation.
The new facility will provide opportunities for enhanced programming and services related to major exploration and student success initiatives. The building abbreviation is “AC.” Please make a note of this information for referrals. All Academic Advising Center telephone and e-mail contact information remains the same.
An open house to showcase the new facility is being planned for mid-September. More information is coming soon.
Media Services is offering training on using the audiovisual equipment in Provost-sponsored SMART classrooms.
Both new and returning instructors should benefit from these brief seminars. The seminars will include information about any recent changes to the equipment in the rooms.
These seminars are open-ended and run continually; drop in at any time. A complete demonstration with hands-on practice takes about 30 minutes. Those who cannot attend one of the above sessions can contact Keith Bisplinghoff at (815) 753-0172 for other training opportunities.