NIU Today

“Ethically Inspired Leadership.” The words are familiar words to anyone on the NIU campus as one of President Doug Baker’s pillars of Student Career Success, but their meaning might seem unclear to those outside the university community. Such was the case for a corporate executive booked to speak at the annual BELIEF Week in the...

President Doug Baker unveiled a bold plan for Northern Illinois University’s future Wednesday, saying that he will work to dramatically expand internship opportunities, try to match every student with an alumni mentor and endeavor to ensure that every graduate is employed within six months of graduation. Baker’s comments came during ceremonies marking his inauguration as...

The Northern Illinois University College of Business has again been recognized as among the best in the nation at providing students with a strong foundation in ethics. NIU ranked third in Bloomberg Businessweek’s listing of best undergraduate business schools in the nation for teaching ethics. NIU has placed among the top three on the list...

Accountancy Professor Pam Smith will present a talk, “Building Ethical Leaders,” as part of the Board of Trustees Professorship Lecture Series. Smith’s talk begins at 11:30 a.m. Monday, April 22, in the Lincoln Room of the Holmes Student Center. Her comments will focus on how faculty can help students to recognize ethical challenges and make...

What is an “educated” person? For those who teach, such as the NIU Department of History’s E. Taylor Atkins, it’s an important question without consensus. “Is it someone whose mind is a storehouse of data that can be recalled instantly? Or is an educated person a critical, free thinker and problem solver?” asks Atkins, who...

Count Pam Smith among NIU’s legion of lifelong learners, especially when it concerns effective teaching. Her goal is to “create a learning environment based on respect, individual accountability, ethics and personal integrity.” “When I started teaching, I thought if I provided sound technical content and motivated students, they would learn the material. Therefore, much of...

To the layman, accounting might appear to consist of little more than moving numbers from one column to another. Jim Young, chair of the Department of Accountancy in the Northern Illinois University College of Business, knows better. After a lifetime spent working in and teaching about accountancy, he sees it as a vital, exciting field...

As a 16-year-old with five siblings and an abusive mother, Yolanda struggled to gain attention from her single parent. She finally succeeded – and in a big way, or so she thought – when administrators at Rockford East High School expelled her for fighting. But though it might have earned her some street cred with...

The NIU College of Business fared extremely well in a recent BusinessWeek magazine story citing a 2010 survey of senior-level students across the country ranking how well their business school integrated ethics into the curriculum. An overwhelming majority of NIU business students gave the college’s BELIEF Initiative an “A.” That level of satisfaction ranked second only...