Over the last four years, an international collaboration led by NIU Libraries has made rare materials related to the history, scholarship and culture of Southeast Asia available online.
Now the Southeast Asia Digital Library, as it is known, is adding a virtual wing or two. The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) has tapped NIU Libraries to lead a major expansion of the Web site.
Ten additional constituent digitization projects and new features that allow scholars in Southeast Asia to remotely upload library materials to the Web site will ensure that the Southeast Asia Digital Library continues to grow into a major online resource for the field of Southeast Asia Studies.
DOE is providing a $190,000 grant for the first year of the project. It is expected to be funded at similar levels in each of the three following years as well, said Drew VandeCreek, who heads NIU Libraries’ digitization unit and is co-director of the Southeast Asia Digital Library project.
NIU is partnering on the digitization effort with Hawaii, Yale, Cornell and Arizona State universities, along with five institutions and many independent scholars based in Southeast Asia.
“The online library was originally created using resources primarily from Southeast Asia,” VandeCreek said. “The granting agency wanted to make sure the project would continue to grow and thrive. The new round of funding will make it easier for people in Southeast Asia to contribute to the digital collections.”
The grant is being distributed through the DOE’s Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access Program. It supports projects that use innovative electronic technologies to collect information from foreign sources.
“The U.S. government has a vested interest in cultivating speakers of Southeast Asian languages and experts in the region’s culture and history,” VandeCreek said. “We digitize manuscripts, books, images and multimedia so that students can study the region and learn its languages by listening to native speakers.”
Online digitization projects reach audiences inside and outside of academe. In its simplest terms, the digitization process requires scanning or photographing artifacts and research documents. Special software is used to put text into searchable word-processing files and to catalogue materials, which are then loaded into databases on the Web site.
“The most exciting aspect is that we will be able to provide online access for free to many rare materials that otherwise wouldn’t be accessible unless you traveled to Southeast Asia,” said Hao Phan, curator of NIU Libraries’ Southeast Asia Collection and co-director with VandeCreek on the digital library expansion project.
The Southeast Asia Digital Library already boasts such resources as video of a contemporary Indonesian television show, century-old Vietnamese manuscripts, palm-leaf manuscripts from Thailand and video interviews with former political prisoners in East Timor.
In coming years, the online library hopes to add much more, including Lao and Thai Buddhist artworks, rare Islamic manuscripts from Indonesia, rare books from Malaysia and interviews with artists and art-related materials from Vietnam.
NIU is nationally recognized for its expertise in the languages, literatures, anthropology, geography, history, religion, music, art history and governments of Southeast Asia.
The NIU Center for Southeast Asian Studies is one of only nine federally designated national resource centers for study of the region. Center Director James Collins is serving as a consultant on the digitization project, along with NIU Anthropology Chair Judy Ledgerwood, Professor of Anthropology Susan Russell and Professor of Art Catherine Raymond, director of the NIU Center for Burma Studies.
Many of the young teenagers who came to NIU’s Game Design Day Camp arrived with exactly zero knowledge of how their favorite pastimes were created.
By week’s end, they were playing games that sprang from their own imaginations: Little green men. Flames. Bullets. Nutcracker villains. Robot heroes. Puddles of crimson blood.
Some were more peaceful: “Mine is about a girl in a dream who has to come home before her parents wake up,” said Kayla Federici, a 13-year-old student who attends St. Mary’s School in DeKalb. “She has to jump over clouds and beat the timer … (and) try not to get under the rainbows.”
Andrew Yohanon, a 11-year-old student at St. Mary’s who loves the game “Halo 3,” watched in delight as the word “BANG” bounced on his screen. “I really like video games,” he said, “and I really wanted to learn how they’re made.”
Mission accomplished.
“The goal of the camp was to learn what it takes to design and develop video games. We reinforced that there’s a lot more to it than sitting in front of a computer (and) programming” said Jason Underwood, a camp instructor, eLearning Services staff and adjunct faculty member in the College of Education.
“On the design part, we spent time with colored pencils and paper drawing characters. We came up with the back story for our characters. We played a lot of video games and used those to talk about narrative, the high concepts of the games and what makes games fun.”
Aline Click, director of eLearning Services and co-director of the Digital Convergence Lab at NIU, served as camp director. Travis Pierce, Andy Saia and Michael Taylor joined Underwood as instructors, bringing expertise in information services, time arts and music technology.
The camp, Click said, is part of the Digital Convergence Lab’s goal to provide fun learning experiences at NIU that focus on emerging technologies and 21st century skills. The lab (and camp) is located on the third floor of Founders Memorial Library.
Research has shown that students who lose themselves in video games often are learning “hard stuff,” Click said, “so if we could develop 'serious games’ that also meet the needs of schools’ curriculum requirements, then we are successful.” At the university level, learning how to use and create emerging technologies can better prepare college students for the global workplace and its demand for online social networking, virtual meetings and reliance on mobile technologies, she added.
Students at NIU’s camp used computer-based tools and a book titled “The Game Maker’s Apprentice” to move their ideas and designs from the prototype stage to playable video games. As they worked, they also developed skills such as teamwork, project management, use of computer software and complex problem solving.
They also honed math skills such as algebra and geometry through exploring the rules of logic as well as plotting coordinates for their animations.
Click first envisioned the camp last spring during the Students in Technology Conference at Clinton-Rosette Middle School, where her daughter Sam is a student and gave a presentation on making movies with iMovie.
“It was a conference for students by students. The students actually had to get up and do presentations on different technology,” Click said. “So, I asked if a games camp was something students would be interested in.”
As soon as the second day of camp, students were using their break time to continue programming.
“It’s really cool to be able to make games and not just play games. All these kids are game players, and to make the transition to a design perspective and not just a consumer perspective is really a different state of mind,” Underwood said.
“All the instructors agreed that we were pleasantly surprised at how advanced the games were,” he added. “By the end of the third day, the kids had gone into more of a free development mode, where different kids needed different things for their games. The games all turned out very differently. Everyone didn’t end up with Pac-Man, and we started with Pac-Man as a simple premise.”
Click would like to continue offering video game design classes this fall.
“We were surprised at how well it went and how engaged the students were. We had 100 percent attendance, and the camp was hard. It wasn’t meant to be easy. It wasn’t a come-and-play camp. It was hard – and fun,” Click said. “We’re hoping to do some after-school programs and keep this going.”
As to a location for an after-school camp, “we are still in the planning stage” Click said. “We have the technology and the staff we need here in the lab, but we understand it will be more difficult for the kids to get here after school. If I compare it to violin lessons over in the Music Building, I have to believe that parents will bring their kids to the library if they think learning these technologies skills are an important-enough thing for them to learn.”
All of the software used at the camp is “open source” – it’s legally free online – so the campers can continue to work on their projects at home. The programs included GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Program) and Audacity (which helped the campers with their audio, including music they created on computerized synthesizers).
Underwood expects the parents of the campers will set aside typical concerns concerning video games to allow at-home programming.
“These kids are incredibly engaged in a creative enterprise,” he said. “You wouldn’t yell at your kid if he sat in his room and painted for three hours.”
Summer months rarely evoke thoughts of school.
But for registered nurses who live in the Elgin area, now is the perfect time to think about continuing their education toward bachelor’s degrees through a new partnership between Elgin Community College and NIU.
Although the RN-to-BS in Nursing cohort began in the spring, interested nurses still are welcome to join the local and affordable group this fall. They have missed only two courses and can pick up one of them next summer at NIU’s main campus in DeKalb.
Graduation will take place in December 2010 for those who stay on schedule. Some nurses also will need to earn general education credits. The next cohort launches in the spring of 2011.
“This partnership is exciting because it shows how Elgin Community College can work with four-year institutions to provide our nursing students with a seamless transition to a bachelor’s degree,” said Wendy Miller, interim associate dean of health professions at ECC.
“This is a tremendous opportunity for not only ECC students but for this community,” Miller added. “Having NIU on our campus gives busy nurses the chance to increase their level of education. This benefits the region’s health care providers and the patients who utilize those providers.”
Brigid Lusk, chair of the School of Nursing and Health Studies at NIU, said the partnership also provides nurses with a richer academic situation. NIU previously offered degree completion programs at hospitals.
“We feel this is a better learning experience for these students in an atmosphere that encourages new ideas and mixing with new people as opposed to being in a classroom that’s confined by their colleagues at a specific hospital,” Lusk said.
“At NIU, we truly want to live up to our mission to provide reasonably priced education to the regional community,” she added. “In the Elgin area, particularly, there are a good number of residents from under-represented groups to whom we really want to reach out. This cohort will help them in a very accessible environment.”
The partnership comes at a time when ECC is expanding its environment.
College leaders celebrated the approval of a $178 million bond referendum in April that will provide funds to build and equip a Health Careers Center, doubling the classroom space for health careers training.
Students in the NIU cohort take eight courses (and one laboratory section) over four semesters, including “Health Assessment,” “Alterations in Biological Systems,” “Community Health Nursing” and “Nursing and the Law.”
“Concepts, Issues and Interpersonal Strategies in Professional Nursing,” one of the two courses already provided at ECC this spring, is offered again next spring at Waubonsee Community
College. Students also may substitute “Professional Nursing,” which is offered during the fall and spring semesters on the DeKalb campus.
The classes – two per semester – are taught back-to-back (and face-to-face rather than online or via closed-circuit TV) one night a week.
The new partnership should improve health care in the Elgin area – “Better-educated nurses have been shown to make a difference in quality and health care outcomes for patients,” Lusk said – and open doors to career advancement to nurses.
Michele Brynelsen, ECC nursing instructional coordinator, said modern hospitals encourage nurses to obtain bachelor’s degrees to fill vacant managerial positions. Today’s nurses also must possess more skills than in the past, she said.
“Nurses need to think critically and make decisions about care,” Brynelsen said. “It’s not about giving a shot; it’s about why you’re giving that shot.”
The NIU School of Nursing and Health Studies is housed in the College of Health and Human Sciences. For more information, visit http://www.niu.edu/offcampusacademics/nursing/ or call (815) 753-6556.
NIU’s Department of Mathematical Sciences will host an international conference on campus on linear and numerical linear algebra.
The conference begins Wednesday, Aug. 12, and runs through Friday, Aug. 14.
“Through this conference, we aim to strengthen the ties and enhance communication between the theoretical, applied and computational areas of linear algebra,” says conference chairman Biswa Datta, a Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences.
“We’re bringing together top researchers in linear algebra, numerical linear algebra and targeted application areas, such as control and systems theory and signal and image processing, for an exchange of ideas and discussions of recent developments and future directions of research,” he adds.
The conference is drawing researchers from top U.S. universities, including MIT, Duke, Emory, Purdue, Wake Forest, Texas A&M, Arizona State, the College of William and Mary and the Universities of Illinois, Connecticut, Wisconsin-Madison and California-Santa Barbara.
Also attending are participants from international institutions such as the University of Liverpool, University College, Dublin (Ireland), University of Waterloo (Canada) and the Israel Institute of Technology.
A special issue of the journal, “Linear Algebra and Its Applications,” will be devoted to selected papers presented at the event, which is supported by the NIU Department of Mathematical Sciences, the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (IMA) and the University of Wyoming.
More conference information can be found online.
Phyllis Cunningham is more than a retired professor from the NIU College of Education.
She’s also a courageous role model and guiding force for the youth of Illinois and the United States through her vision of a more peaceful and diverse nation. She’s honest, loyal and committed. She’s a strong and persuasive woman.
So says 16-year-old Adama Sidibe, a recent DeKalb High School graduate who successfully recommended Cunningham as one of 14 “Lincolnland Legends” for 2009.
“Thanks to Dr. Phyllis Cunningham,” Sidibe writes in his nominating essay, “I have realized that what matters the most is our contributions to the community we live in and the society at large. Because of her organization, I have both Latino friends as well as white and African-American friends, and race doesn’t seem to be a big issue any longer. We learn to accept our differences and recognize that this nation is for us to share.”
Designed to encourage Illinois high school students to honor people who inspire and motivate them, the program is administered by Illinois Dollars for Scholars.
Students who participate in the Lincolnland Legend program create and instill a sense of pride in living in Illinois and develop an appreciation for outstanding Illinoisans who have overcome life obstacles and/or accomplished significant goals.
Sidibe won a $4,000 scholarship for his essay; he and Cunningham traveled to Springfield for the awards ceremony at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library. Next year, Illinois Dollars for Scholars will award a $500 scholarship to a DeKalb High School student in honor of Cunningham.
Cunningham, who taught adult education at NIU from 1976 until her retirement in 2002, is pleased by Sidibe’s generous heart and kind words.
“His essay blew me away,” she says.
The Sidibe family hails from Mali, West Africa. They first came to DeKalb in 1997, when Adama’s father chose to pursue his Ph.D. here. His mother soon began work on her master’s and, after a trip home, returned to start doctoral studies.
“Adama’s mother, Maimouna Konate, is a doctoral student in our program. She has three children, and she’s been here six or seven years. I’ve invited them to my house for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and that’s how I’ve gotten to know the children. We would have discussions at the table afterward about various things – we would argue about women’s rights – and that is how Adama got to know me,” Cunningham says.
“His mother is also quite active with me and with some of the things I have done regarding social responsibilities, and he also knew about those,” she adds. “When it came to the requirements of the essay, he had to find somebody who did things like Abraham Lincoln – the whole thing is predicated on the kind of democratic values that Lincoln had established – and he wrote about what I had done over the years.”
Cunningham, named a Presidential Teaching Professor in 1994, spent most of her academic career “breaking the color barrier.”
With a background in nursing, she experienced a “transformation” during her graduate school days at the University of Chicago. It was the late 1960s – “the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and all those kinds of challenges going on,” she says – and her scholarship to study residential nursing education no longer seemed so important.
“They told me that what I was doing was adult education. I had not really thought about that,” she says. “And as I got into adult education, I saw that as a much broader way of doing things instead of in such a much more constricted way as nursing. I got a lot of education on the streets. Nursing just faded into the background.”
After serving as director of Study Unlimited and dean of the Center for Open Learning, part of the City Colleges of Chicago, Cunningham arrived at NIU at a crucial time.
“Our adult education program was new. A number of the doc students came with us, and we all felt the same way: We were not here to do business as usual,” she says. “We developed an open and radical curriculum and became well known, actually internationally, as a place where you could come and study in a very radical curriculum.”
First to change was traditional College of Education curriculum “informed by psychology. What we did was to place a more political and sociological component into the education.”
Second, the new professors pushed their graduate students out of the classroom for field experiences amidst the laboratories of the streets. Students ventured into neighborhoods “to serve in organizations that were actually doing resistance in the community; in other words, putting things into action, whether it was here in Chicago or in other countries.”
Third, the professors brought visitors to add unique layers to the graduate-level education.
Visiting professors took up temporary residence in DeKalb, some staying as long as a year and others only a few months. Graduate students from overseas also were recruited.
“Giving our students an opportunity to gain that kind of interaction with those professors really impacted the curriculum as well,” Cunningham says. “We also were attracting students who had a different view of the world.”
That became her legacy.
“I worked particularly hard at getting African-American doctoral students in our program. We also brought in a number of students from Asia, Africa and South America here,” she says. “We were up to 40 percent of our people being people of color, and I considered that to be one of the most exciting aspects of my professorship.”
It excites Adama Sidibe as well.
His essay also praises Cunningham’s battles against racism, sexism and violence and her work with grassroots community groups seeking political and social change for low-income populations.
“Whenever I hear about her doing things,” he says, “it has something to do with helping minorities, whether they’re Hispanic or African-American.”
Sidibe plans to attend Kishwaukee College in the fall. He loves aviation and hopes to become an international pilot, but hasn’t settled on a career yet.
“I’m really open,” he says. “I might go with medicine.”
NIU’s Academic Advising Center is moving Monday, Aug. 10, to a new location on campus between the parking deck and the library at 633 W. Locust St.
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.
NIU’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies no longer will mail print copies of its annual newsletter, The Mandala. Instead, the newsletter will be published electronically and with greater frequency.
To request an electronic subscription, e-mail cseas@niu.edu. For more information about the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, visit www.cseas.niu.edu.
Registration is open for NIU’s fall sessions of test prep for the LSAT, GRE and GMAT.
All GRE, GMAT and LSAT test prep courses are held Saturdays in Barsema Hall, rooms 313 and 315. Register by phone at (800) 345-9472 or online.
There is a discount for NIU alumni, employees and students. Early-bird discounts also are available until Friday, Aug. 21. For more information, contact Mark Pietrowski at (815) 753-1456 or pietrowski@niu.edu.
GRE Test Prep Course
GMAT Test Prep Course
LSAT Test Prep Course
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.
An NIU alumnus and his daughter will collaborate to present “Daughter-Father August Art” at the DeKalb Area Women’s Center Galleries.
Photographs, collages and collections by Daerielle Culver will be displayed in the Great Hall Space, while father Ken Culver’s ceramic pottery and oil pastel drawings will be exhibited in the OnStage Gallery. The art exhibitions will be featured throughout August. An artists’ reception will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, Aug. 14, featuring guitar and vocals by Daerielle and grilled franks by Ken.
A third generation DeKalb native, Ken earned a bachelor of science degree in elementary education from NIU in 1966 and a master of arts degree in anthropology in 1976. His educational career included a focus on art; he built a gas-fired kiln in the garage and has been throwing pottery ever since.
Daerielle was deemed the “Auraweaver” by a friend when they played opposite each other as Teyve and Golde in the DeKalb High School rendition of “The Fiddler on The Roof.” She went on to earn a earned a bachelor of arts degree in communication from Humboldt State University, in Arcata, Calif.
The DAWC galleries are open to the public from 7 to 9 p.m. Fridays and by appointment. Admission is free. The center is located at 1021 State Street in DeKalb. Parking is available one-half block south in the lot off of Eleventh Street. An accessible lift is off of the alley just north of the building.
For information regarding the DAWC, call (815) 758-1351.
First-Year Connections (FYC) is looking for faculty and members of the Supportive Professional Staff who are interested in volunteering their time to mentor new students during their transition to NIU.
The Student-Faculty Links mentoring program is a component of Orientation & First-Year Experience. Student-Faculty Links mentors are asked to fill out short surveys to match them with new students who express similar interests or are in a related academic department.
Mentors and protégées are then notified in early August with each other’s contact information, and are invited to an informal reception hosted by the FYC staff on Friday, Aug. 21. All meetings after the reception are to be determined by the mentor and the student.
The Student-Faculty Links provides a unique opportunity to reach out and make a difference in the lives of new students. Faculty and staff involvement is highly beneficial to new students seeking guidance and encouragement to make their college experience successful and enjoyable.
If you are interested in mentoring a new student for fall 2009 or would like to learn more about the Student-Faculty Links program, call First-Year Connections at (815) 753-0028 or e-mail firstconn@niu.edu.
NIU’s Division of International Programs will host a brown bag lecture series during the 2009-10 academic year. The series will be held from noon to 1 p.m. Thursdays in Faraday West, Room 300.
Proposals are currently being accepted for presentations at this series. The expected presentation time is approximately 30 minutes with an additional 10 minutes for a question-and-answer period. The topics are open to the speaker and can relate to diversity, cultural or international subjects, study abroad experiences or a specific subject matter in a particular field of study.
More information and registration for topic proposals are available online.
The NIU Alumni Association has planned a day of family fun Saturday, Aug. 8, at Broofield Zoo. The zoo is open for exploration from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Join the NIU group for lunch at the Peacock Pavilion. Ticket prices range from $15 to $30 and include entrance to the zoo, parking and a full picnic lunch buffet that will feature hamburgers, hot dog, cheeseburgers, fried chicken, salads, non-alcoholic beverages and ice cream.
Visit myniu.com for more information.