NIU Today

NIU International Affairs has announced a record 11 Cobb Fellowships this year. The fellowships will allow NIU faculty to establish new collaborations through travel to international destinations, including China, Kenya, Israel, Madagascar, Myanmar and South Korea. “Cobb fellowships stimulate collaboration across borders to facilitate faculty research and long-lasting partnerships,” says Brad Bond, dean of the...

OHANA and organizers of Asian American Heritage Month will host contemporary artist Laura Kina to discuss “Uchinanchu: Painting Okinawan Transpacific History and Heritage.” Kina, professor of art, media and design at DePaul University, will present at 5 p.m. Tuesday, April 5, in the Duke Ellington Ballroom of the Holmes Student Center. All students, faculty, staff...

NIU’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS) and the Center for Non-Governmental Organization Leadership and Development (NGOLD) bid farewell Wednesday, Nov. 4, to 21 young Southeast Asian leaders participating in the Leading and Organizing for Change in Southeast Asia (LOCSEA) institute. Beginning Sept. 30, the trip concluded with a five-day study tour of the South...

NIU’s four area studies centers will be out in force with food, music and dance from three regions of the world from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 27, at this year’s International Area Studies Open House. The annual event, held outdoors on College View Court on east campus, will be hosted by the...

Cultural anthropologist Judy Ledgerwood and public administration expert Kurt Thurmaier are this year’s winners of the Presidential Engagement Professor awards. Both are longtime NIU faculty members whose works exemplify the concept of university engagement as “a commitment to fostering reciprocal partnerships in which problems, solutions, goals and measures of success are jointly defined” and “external...

The U.S. Department of Education has awarded NIU’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS) two Title VI grants totaling $2 million to continue promoting the study and research of Southeast Asian languages and cultures over the next four years. This is the fifth time CSEAS has received such funding since its designation as a National...

About 10 years ago, Nay Yan Oo was working toward a degree in computer science at the Government Computer College in Pathein, Myanmar. But he kept running into a major snafu – access to a computer. “I got a degree in computer science but didn’t get many chances to use the computer lab,” says the...

Northern Illinois University President Doug Baker announced Monday evening the establishment of the Southeast Asia Youth Leadership Program (SEAYLP) Fellowship, a program that will provide tuition waivers to students who have participated or will be participating in the U.S. Department of State program administered by NIU since 2009. The fellowship will be offered to SEAYLP...

NIU’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS) and the International Training Office (ITO) are actively seeking host families for two U.S. Department of State youth leadership programs this spring. Among those who have signed up so far are NIU President Doug Baker and First Lady Dana Stover. CSEAS is looking for families to host for...

NIU will welcome royalty to campus this fall. Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand is scheduled to visit the university Wednesday, Sept. 18, when she will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree during a special ceremony at Altgeld Hall. “Her scheduled visit brings great honor to NIU,” says Deborah...

Being loud might not be in the nature of librarians. When it came time to open the Center for Southeast Asian Studies’ third 50th anniversary exhibit, however, University Libraries’ Southeast Asia curator Hao Phan was determined to draw attention to the subject of the show. And so it was at 4 p.m. on a sleepy...

The new Thai ambassador to the United States, who happened to be in Chicago on Saturday, March 2, honored NIU’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS), by being among the center’s distinguished guests at its 50th anniversary gala dinner in Altgeld Hall that evening. His Excellency Chaiyong Satjipanon and an entourage – Songphol Sukchan, the...