Bills signed by Gov. Pat Quinn last week included nearly $40 million for badly needed construction and maintenance projects on campus.
Included was money to rehabilitate the Stevens Building ($22 million), funding to tackle deferred maintenance projects ($5.2 million) and planning money for a new “technology building” ($2.8 million). An additional $8 million to remodel and renovate Cole Hall was included as part of a supplement to the capital bill.
The $31 billion capital bill was the first passed by the Illinois legislature and signed by the governor in nearly a decade.
“The last capital bill was passed during the Ryan administration. A lack of resources and a lack of cooperation during Gov. Blagojevich’s time in office precluded the passage of any capital bills,” said Ken Zehnder, associate director of external affairs for NIU. “The transition to Governor Quinn, and ever increasing infrastructure needs, provided the opportunity and effort to get this done.”
Word of the funding arrives not a moment too soon, said NIU President John Peters.
“Our portion of the capital bill will allow us to undertake some desperately needed projects on campus,” Peters said. “The Stevens building is in terrible shape and growing worse by the day, and some of the maintenance issues this will allow us to address are absolutely crucial. We are very grateful to receive this money, and we will do everything we can to expedite this work.”
However, while passage of the capital bill has set off a flurry of activity, it will be some time before crews will be on campus and at work.
Before that can happen, said Jeff Daurer, director of capital budgeting and planning in the Division of Finance and Facilities, engineering and design work must be completed. The Capital Development Board must review plans. Approvals must be secured. Contracts must be let and signed, and a litany of other requirements must be met.
“We are very excited to see this money approved, but there is a lot of work to do before actual construction will begin,” said Daurer, adding that the massive influx of capital projects across the state will keep the Capital Development Board quite busy and possibly slow the process.
Here is a rundown of the projects:
The work at Cole Hall will fall into four major categories.
The funding also includes money to replace the lost lecture hall in Cole, at an as yet-to-be-determined location.
Daurer estimates that work on the Cole Hall project could start in 2010, and should take about a year to complete.
The capital bill includes $22 million to rehabilitate, remodel, modernize and expand the Stevens Building, which is home to the School of Theatre and Dance and the Department of Anthropology. The severity of issues in the 50-year-old, 67,000-square-foot building has placed it at the top of NIU’s capital project request list for more than a decade. With no money forthcoming during that time, the condition of the building continued to deteriorate.
With funding finally approved, the university plans to:
No timeline for the project has been established.
Those upgrades are overdue and much anticipated, said Dean Christopher McCord of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
“The anthropology department has been making do with very challenging spaces for some time,” he said. “Their ability to serve their students will be enhanced by spaces that are appropriate to their considerable abilities.”
The School of Theatre and Dance program also eagerly awaits the improvements as the building long ago became inadequate to meet the needs of today’s high-tech theater productions.
“With the current state of the Stevens Building, we often hear from prospective theater students that they absolutely love our faculty and proximity to Chicago, but that the facility is so lacking that they choose to attend a different university,” said Rich Holly, dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts. “When the renovation is complete, we’ll be much, much better positioned to attract the best and the brightest from across the United States.”
The capital bill signed by the governor also included $5.2 million to address deferred maintenance around campus. The list of such needs is long, Daurer said, but one project has quickly risen to the top over the past few years.
The 60-year-old steam tunnel leading from the East Heating Plant behind Altgeld Hall has dramatically deteriorated because of wear and tear inflicted by vehicle traffic above the tunnel. The structure has cracked, groundwater has infiltrated it and chunks of concrete have begun falling from the ceiling, damaging pipes below.
A failure in that stretch of tunnel would be catastrophic, Daurer said, as it could mean a loss of heat for many buildings on the east side of campus.
“We have been desperately seeking a source of funding to address those problems as quickly as possible, but there was simply no money, so this money arrives at a crucial moment,” Daurer said.
Current estimates place the cost of reconstructing 150 linear feet of the tunnel, and the associated piping, at about $1.7 million.
To decide how to spend the remaining money, Finance and Facilities will evaluate a laundry list of projects that have been waiting for funding. Daurer said likely prospects include replacement of several badly deteriorated roofs and upgrades to the campus electrical system, which is becoming more antiquated and dilapidated by the day.
“We are in the process of re-evaluating all of those projects to determine where the greatest need is and how we can stretch those dollars the furthest,” he said.
The university received $2.8 million to begin the planning process for a new “technology building.”
The first order of business will be to revise the program statement that defines the use and scope of the building. Officials then will hire an architect to work with programs to be housed in the facility to figure out how best to meet their various needs.
NIU’s Christopher McCord and Jim Collins are members of a U.S. delegation of higher education leaders who are traveling to Indonesia next week to explore opportunities for expanding educational programs.
McCord, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Collins, director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, will arrive Sunday, July 26, and spend six days in Indonesia.
The delegation is proceeding despite the violence in Indonesia this past week.
Delegates will meet with representatives and officials at local universities, the U.S. Embassy, the EducationUSA Center, the Indonesia Ministry of Education and the American Indonesian Exchange Foundation (Fulbright Commission). The group also will meet with current students and alumni of American institutions.
NIU’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies is one of a few federally funded national resource centers for study of the region. The university has a long history of hosting students from Indonesia and boasts at least 60 Indonesian alumni.
“This trip is an opportunity for us to build on all of our existing strengths,” Dean McCord said. “NIU has a long history of engagement with Indonesia. We have been welcoming students from the country for over 40 years, and some of our alumni are now leaders of Indonesian society, including Anies Baswedan, president of Paramadhina Islamic University, and Andi Alfian Mallarangeng, spokesperson for the President of Indonesia.”
NIU faculty members have been active in Indonesia as visiting scholars, researchers and election monitors. The university also regularly hosts visiting faculty from Indonesia and has offered instruction in the Indonesian language since 1967.
By nearly any measure, Indonesia is a country that merits greater attention in the United States. It is a young and increasingly vibrant democracy, the world’s fourth most populous nation and the country with the largest number of Muslims. Indonesia also has the largest economy is Southeast Asia.
Historically, Indonesia has sent a large number of students to study in the United States.
In recent years, however, the numbers have declined and fewer Indonesians attend U.S. colleges and universities today than a decade ago. Far fewer Americans experience study in Indonesia. The future of academic exchange depends heavily on the relationships forged between higher education institutions in Indonesia and the United States.
The U.S. delegation is co-chaired by Gregory L. Geoffroy, president of Iowa State University; Allan Goodman, president and CEO of the Institute of International Education; Ambassador David Merrill, president of the United States-Indonesia Society; and Charles Morrison, president of the East-West Center.
Camped in Serengeti National Park, the eight NIU students settled into their sleeping bags, only to hear the not-so-distant laughter of hyenas, grunts of warthogs and roars of lions.
During daytime safaris, the cover of darkness gone, they spotted animals they had seen before only in zoos, now in their natural habitat: galloping impalas, grazing giraffes and elephants, a leopard perched in a tree, a pack of cheetahs strategically stalking a herd of zebras.
At one point, the students’ Land Rovers snaked through a traffic jam of sorts, as tens of thousands of wildebeests made their annual migration through the Great Rift Valley, crossing man-made roads along the way.
This was NIU’s first study abroad trip to Tanzania, and it provided a learning experience that for many of the students was beyond description.
“It was a sensory overload,” says 22-year-old Tristan Pence, a senior economics major from Downers Grove who had never before traveled overseas. “Everything was so surreal and incredibly different that I don’t think I could accurately describe it.”
The students also witnessed the abject poverty of a country left behind by globalization: barefoot children wearing torn hand-me-downs, playing with toys made of garbage; families living in huts made of sticks and mud, with pit toilets and no electricity; concrete workers laboring for a dollar a day, without benefit of shoes and gloves; HIV-infected orphans struggling to survive on a Lake Victoria island overrun by prostitution and disease.
Amidst these contrasts of natural abundance and scarcity of human resources, the NIU students say they encountered uncommon generosity, humility, hospitality and gratitude.
In the tiny village of Nyegina – where the study abroad group helped build a high school girls dormitory – the students’ bus was met by hundreds of welcomers. The villagers lined a dirt road, waving palm fronds, beating drums, singing songs and dancing to celebrate the visitors’ arrival.
“It was almost like Palm Sunday,” says Kurt Thurmaier, a professor of public administration who led the trip. “We were all overwhelmed.”
A year earlier, Thurmaier and his wife Jeanine had visited Tanzania and reunited with their friend, the Rev. Leo Kazeri. The Nyegina parish priest serves as development director for the diocese, director of a secular economic development organization and business manager for the Nyegina boarding school with an enrollment of 500 students.
Kazeri and Thurmaier had first met many years earlier, when they both were working toward public administration degrees at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Seeing the substantial work that his friend was accomplishing and the region’s great need, Thurmaier recognized an educational opportunity for students that would combine service and experiential learning.
This past June, it became a reality.
From their base in Musoma, a city of about 100,000 on Lake Victoria, the students studied how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – or what Americans typically call non-profit groups – play a strategic role in developing countries. The students participated in seminars with different NGO officials in the Musoma area, and several conducted individual interviews with officials for independent study projects.
The NIU students then spent a good portion of the trip joining forces with a volunteer service group organized through Tanzania Development Support. The NGO was created by Thurmaier, his wife and their friends to raise funds for construction of the girls dormitory in Nyegina and for other needs of the school.
Working alongside laborers, school board members and others in the Nyegina community, the students poured the dormitory’s cement foundation. They carried more than 10,000 bricks to build its walls. They also made a difference in the lives of people they had just met.
“The single most effective way to fight poverty is to provide secondary education to young women,” Thurmaier says. “That’s true in the United States as well as in developing nations.”
He says the service-learning component of the study abroad program was critical. It taps a strong desire of students today to contribute to society through volunteerism and to engage those who need assistance.
“It’s not just study abroad, where students go and look, but where they go and look and do,” Thurmaier says. “Students can experience a different culture and leave knowing they’ve made a lasting contribution.”
On his first trip overseas, Pence saw cultural differences, to be sure, but he also recognized similarities.
“Being able to contribute to the community was fantastic,” he says. “We connected with the people there on a much more personal level, to the point where we could smile and joke and laugh together. There was a bond there that I think really exemplified how people don’t intrinsically change from country to country and continent to continent.”
Stephanie Reilly, 22, a senior from Rockford majoring in corporate communications, is continuing to work with a Tanzanian NGO, developing its Web site.
“One of the things that struck me the most was how the people were so open to meeting us,” she says. “They were excited to see new faces come and just show interest in their community. The children had never really seen Caucasians before. The highlight of their day was just being able to hold our hands and walk alongside us.”
Professor Thurmaier wanted to establish a study abroad program that would challenge the students’ views of the world they live in. He believes it succeeded.
“The students had such a rich experience,” he says. “Hopefully their worldview is profoundly different than when they set out.”
For more photos and information on the NIU work in Tanzania, visit the “project blog” section of the Tanzanian Development Support Web site at www.tdsnfp.org.
Knowledge is of no value, Anton Chekov said, unless put into practice.
Engaged universities – NIU included – and their community partners validate Chekov’s words through an active sharing of resources, experience and wisdom that benefits both sides.
Yet there is always more to learn as well as room for improvement.
Bradley Bond, acting dean of the Graduate School, and Lemuel Watson, dean of the College of Education, represented NIU last month at the Engagement Academy for University Leaders.
Held in Roanoke, Va., the workshop was presented by Virginia Tech in association with the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities and the Association of Public Land-grant Universities.
“I left the Engagement Academy with a greater understanding of the myriad ways the university can marshal its human capital to work in reciprocal fashion with communities to solve seemingly intractable problems,” Bond said.
“Perhaps most importantly,” he added, “the academy helped me see how individual scholars can contribute through one project to the research, service and teaching missions of the university.”
The conference created empowerment, Watson said.
“Engagement is a simple concept, but it has powerful and lasting effects,” he said.
“In a context of partnership and reciprocity, this collaboration is about groups coming to the table to share. It’s not about ‘the university is coming to fix you,’ ” he added. “It really is a collaboration for research opportunities for faculty and communities, and from that research, a transfer of knowledge to go both ways to enhance how we work together. We share with the community our research and theories. The community teaches us to improve what we do.”
June’s sessions touched on themes of defining engagement, building institutional commitment, developing a responsive infrastructure and involving faculty, students and community members. Participants also learned how to build and sustain community partnerships and discussed the funding of engagement activities.
On the academic side, the academy offered ideas on linking engagement to research and instruction as well as matching engagement strategies to university strategic planning. It also provided models for integrating strategies across the institution, leveraging sources of institutional support and assessing the impact of engagement.
Many universities have committed to engagement and to the philosophies contained in a book titled “Smart Communities,” which was required reading for Bond, Watson and their academy colleagues.
“The question society is asking,” Watson said, “is, ‘What value do institutions of higher education give to society, not only individually but also in our communities and our regions and in the day-to-day lives of people?’ My college is very involved and, knowing my peer deans, all our colleges are very much involved.”
Leaders from other colleges and universities enrolled in the June academy were impressed with NIU’s location and its subsequent opportunities, Watson said.
“We’re involved with a major urban international city. We’re positioned on the edge of the suburbs. We can go west and become involved in rural education,” Watson said. “Ours is a setting that gives us all kinds of laboratories to make us effective with multiple kinds of communities. I find that exciting. People find that exciting.”
While many high school graduates are enjoying their summer days of freedom before heading off to college, Jessica Brown is instead spending six hours a day sharpening her geometry, algebra and trigonometry skills in preparation for her freshman year at NIU.
Brown and more than 40 other students, most newly minted high school graduates from Chicago Public Schools, are getting a jumpstart on college-level mathematics through an NIU pilot program known as the Summer Math College.
The first-year pilot, conducted at Roosevelt University in Chicago to make it easily accessible, was offered this summer to students who will enter NIU in the fall semester through the McKinley “Deacon” Davis CHANCE Program.
Free of charge, the Summer Math College provides intensive mathematics instruction and one-on-one tutoring to the incoming freshmen. The assistance is aimed at helping the students strengthen their mathematical foundations and achieve better math placements when they arrive at NIU.
“I wanted to work on my math skills before I get on campus,” says Brown, who graduated in June from Chicago’s Michele Clark Academic Preparatory Magnet High School. She plans on becoming an elementary school teacher.
“I have already taken the math placement exam, and (the Summer Math College) actually helped me a lot,” she says. “I’m also having fun while learning. I’m not getting frustrated or giving up easily because it has been explained in a way I understand it.”
Leading the program are Lateef Moody and Naama Lewis, two highly qualified instructors who have special expertise working with students from urban high schools.
The Summer Math College has drawn students from city high schools such as Juarez, Hirsch, Dunbar, Julian and Hyde Park, as well as from suburban Thornton Fractional South, Rich South and Proviso West.
The participating students are highly motivated. Since June 15, they’ve attended the math classes from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday. The program ends July 23, when students will visit the NIU campus in DeKalb for a luncheon.
“It is a big commitment, but you have to want it for yourself,” says Joseph Willie, a recent graduate of Simeon Career Academy who wants to study criminology at NIU. “This program was a door open for me because I was missing a couple layers in my math foundation. It’s truly been a blessing.”
NIU is hoping to expand the Summer Math College next year. It will again be open to all students entering the university through the CHANCE program.
The mission of CHANCE is to identify, recruit and assist capable students whose pre-college education might have lacked resources that benefit most college students. For more than 40 years at NIU, the CHANCE program has provided students who demonstrate strong motivation and potential for success with opportunities to gain admission to the university.
CHANCE looks for characteristics such as special talents, leadership potential, personal commitment, goal orientation and significant activities and accomplishments. Thousands of NIU students who came to NIU through the program have graduated and continued their education to become doctors, lawyers, professors, teachers and other professionals.
“Generally speaking, math is probably one of the subjects that college students don’t gain enough exposure to in high school, despite the fact that a strong mathematics foundation is critically important for many careers,” says Denise Hayman, director of the NIU CHANCE program.
“Once students are admitted to NIU, we want them to be successful,” Hayman adds. “We also want them to overcome any anxiety they might have about mathematics and see it as something they enjoy.”
While visiting Beijing earlier this summer for a conference, NIU Presidential Research Professor Kenton Clymer and his wife, Marlee, received a rare audience with Norodom Sihanouk, the King Father of Cambodia, and his wife Monique, the Queen Mother.
Clymer is a leading scholar on the history of U.S. relations with Cambodia, having written three books on the topic, two of which together won a major award.
Sihanouk figured prominently in those books. He became Cambodia’s king in 1941. He abdicated in 1955 and became a prince, a move that better positioned him to be more directly involved in the country’s political affairs.
“He ran the country as Prince Sihanouk until 1970, when he was overthrown in a coup that Sihanouk blamed on the CIA. He was so angry that he threw in his lot with the Khmer Rouge rebels,” Clymer says.
“Sihanouk wanted to negotiate with Henry Kissinger, but Kissinger refused to talk with him – one of the great tragedies of the early 1970s, in my view,” Clymer adds. “This may have resulted in the Khmer Rouge victory in 1975 and the ‘killing fields’ that followed. Sihanouk became a prisoner of the Khmer Rouge, and they killed several of his children and other family members. Overall, about 2.3 million Cambodians perished during the Khmer Rouge’s bloody rule, which ended only when the Vietnamese army drove them from power at the end of 1978.”
In 1993, Sihanouk again became king but abdicated in 2004, allowing his son, Norodom Sihamoni, to become his successor.
Marlee Clymer knew that Sihanouk was a great admirer of films. The former king has produced many of his own movies, ranging from politically oriented feature films to love stories. Both he and his wife have even had starring roles in some of the films.
Several years ago, Marlee Clymer wrote to Sihanouk to see how she might see his films, and he began sending them to her. In turn, she donated the films to the NIU Libraries’ Southeast Asia Collection, which now boasts what might be the largest collection of Sihanouk films in the United States with more than 80 titles.
“Since we were going to Beijing this summer anyway, Marlee wrote to Sihanouk to see if we might have an audience with him,” Clymer says, adding that the former king spends much of his time at his Beijing residence.
Much to the Clymers’ surprise, they were granted an audience and met with the King Father and Queen Mother on June 1, at the Royal Residence in Beijing, the former French embassy.
The Clymers presented the royal couple with formal letters of appreciation for the films from NIU President John Peters, Center for Southeast Asian Studies Director Jim Collins, NIU Libraries Dean Patrick Dawson and Southeast Asia Collections Curator Hao Phan.
“We spent nearly 40 minutes with them, and we were very fortunate to have been able to meet with them since they have not been seeing very many people these days,” Clymer says. “Sihanouk talked with Marlee about his films. I also talked to him some about Kissinger, but he was not much interested in reviewing the past and commented that, today, relations between the United States and Cambodia are excellent.”
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.
The NIU Annuitants Association will sponsor a trip Saturday, Aug. 1, to the Gold Coast Art Fair, including the Chicago Architecture River Cruise.
Cost is $105 per person and includes round-trip transportation in deluxe motor coach and Chicago Architecture River Cruise. Reservations confirmed by payment. Pick-up points are available at Orchard Road, Naperville Road or Midwest Road upon request. Payments are transferable but not refundable.
To make a reservation, or for more information, contact Steven Johnson at sjohnso11@niu.edu.