Share Tweet Share Email

The Latino Resource Center’s De Mujer a Mujer program in collaboration with E.B.O.N.Y. Women, S.I.S.T.E.R.S. and The Ladies of Distinction student organizations, will be hosting the 7th Annual Women’s Empowerment Conference on Saturday, April 7, from 9:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. in the Holmes Student Center, Sky Room.

This year’s theme is The Future is Female. The conference is targeted toward female college and high school students specifically women of color.

This event will encourage participants to build confidence, discover their voice, express themselves and make wise decisions. It will feature informative workshops led by inspirational speakers on topics such as self-care and mental health awareness, leadership, cultural and gender identity to name a few.

Denice Frohman

This year’s keynote speaker is Denice Frohman who is an award-winning poet, writer, performer, and educator. Born and raised in New York City, she is a CantoMundo Fellow, 2014 National Association of Latino Arts & Cultures grant recipient, 2013 Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion, 2013 Hispanic Choice Award winner (Creative Artist of the Year), and former Leeway Transformation Award recipient. She has been commissioned by ESPN, Twitter, mitú, the City of Philadelphia (“UnLitter Us” Campaign), and GALAEI (Gay and Lesbian Latino Aids Education Initiative). Her debut album, Feels Like Home, blends music, poetry, and song, in collaboration with several of Lauryn Hill’s former band members and musicians from Alo Brasil. Her secret passion is songwriting and she played professional basketball in Puerto Rico after college where she earned a four-year athletic scholarship.

As a queer woman from a multi-cultural background (Puerto Rican and Jewish), her work focuses on identity, social change, disrupting notions of power, and celebrating the parts of ourselves deemed unworthy. She hopes to inspire people, particularly young folks of color, to see themselves as writers with stories that need to be told. Currently, Frohman tours the country.

Mary Stamps

Other guest speakers are current NIU faculty/staff and students such as Mary Stamps, Graduate Assistant at the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center,  Gabriel Sonntag, Prism executive board member; Kristina Wilkerson, Ph.D candidate, Counselor Education and Supervision program; Passion Williamson and Deyci Ramirez who are both counselors in the CHANCE program.

The conference is free. Registration is required, as space is limited and is on a first-come, first-served basis. No walk-in registrations will be accepted. This event is business passport approved and honors engaged.

Passion Williamson

This conference is sponsored by NIU Helping Huskies Thrive: Suicide Awareness and Prevention Program, Student Association, Office of Academic Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Center for Black Studies, Presidential Commission on Persons with Disabilities, Presidential Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (PCSOGI), Alumni Association, Enterprise Rent-A-Car company and the Latino Resource Center.

For more information, contact Angélica Mendoza, assistant director, Latino Resource Center at 815-753-8645 or amendoza7@niu.edu or visit: go.niu.edu/demujeramujer

SaveSave

SaveSaveSaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

Date posted: March 26, 2018 | Author: | Comments Off on NIU to host Women’s Empowerment Conference, Saturday, April 7

Categories: Events Faculty & Staff Homepage Students

 

Engineering student Kiley Niemeyer, a 2017-18 Northern PACT Scholarship winner, with his groups’ Humanitarian Aid Drone in the Engineering Building on Senior Design Day.

The Northern Pact encompasses principles that outline the expectations we have for members of our community–being purposeful, just, caring, open, disciplined and celebrative. Each year, the Division of Student Affairs awards the Northern Pact scholarship to students who share this vision of service and personal responsibility.

Meet transfer student Kiley Niemeyer, one of the recipients of this year’s scholarships.

Year: Second-Year
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Transferred From: College of Lake County

Why did you transfer to NIU?
I started at College of Lake County, where I earned my associates degree in engineering science. The “2+2” engineering program made the transition extremely easy!

How has transferring to NIU impacted you?
Transferring to NIU was a wonderful process, it seems like just yesterday I was going through orientation and now I am about to graduate!

What advice do you have for future transfer students?
Other students should choose NIU for its amazing educational programs. I also have a few words of wisdom for future transfer students. This first one may be more applicable to engineering majors; don’t overload yourself with classes! Four engineering classes and one Gen Ed is a lot, especially during your first semester. Take a course load you can manage, get your feet on the ground and get involved with a student organization. You’ll learn so much from hands-on experiences in my opinion.

What are you studying and why?
I am currently studying, and about to graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering. I chose this major because of my passion for designing and problem-solving. After a few engineering internships, I knew that engineering was the right choice for me!

Where’s your favorite spot on campus and why?
My favorite spot on campus is probably in the NIU machine shop or the Aero lab in the engineering building. I spent a lot of time in those two places throughout my time at NIU and I learned so many practical skills that I would never have otherwise — like welding and machining best practices on a mill or lathe.

What most excites you about your major?
Engineering gives me the opportunity to impact the world in a positive way. In addition to my mechanical engineering degree, I completed my emphasis in sustainable energy. I am truly excited to start my career in the Aerospace industry and help make decisions to safeguard our environment and to keep travelers safe.

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned so far?
The most interesting thing I have learned so far is that in the engineering world, anything is possible. I believe that given enough time and resources, a group of dedicated engineers could accomplish just about any task that was set in front of them.

What most surprised you about NIU?
What most surprised me about NIU was how easy it was to get involved. Throughout my time at NIU I was part of the robotics team, the Society of Automotive and Aerospace Engineers (SAE) and was awarded funds to take part in a student-generated research project through the Undergraduate Special Opportunities in Artistry and Research Program (USOAR).

Which Northern Pact principle do you relate to the most?
I believe that I relate to the “purposeful” principle the most. I have always been my own advocate to reach educational goals and been a firm believer that there is much to be learned and even more to be experienced.

What does the Northern Pact mean to you?
To me, the Northern Pact was an advocate for my success at NIU. The generous support I received was a true blessing to help me finish my education, and for that, I am forever grateful.

Do you know students who exemplify the principles of the Northern Pact? Encourage them to apply online for the 2018-19 Northern Pact scholarship.

Date posted: March 26, 2018 | Author: | Comments Off on Meet Northern Pact Scholar Kiley Niemeyer

Categories: Faculty & Staff Homepage Students

The NIU Robotics team is flying high after securing its first-ever first-place finish at the Midwestern Robotics Design Competition (MRDC), beating out such competitors as the University of Illinois and Northwestern.

“I am incredibly proud of NIU Robotics and the hard work that went into this success,” NIU College of Engineering and Engineering Technology Dean Donald Peterson said. “Our students have the vision, skills and work ethic to succeed, and it is gratifying to see that proven on the competition course.”

Nine teams entered a total of 26 robots in the contest, held March 9 and 10 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The robots – which included flying machines, remote-controlled vehicles and autonomous devices – had to navigate a course and complete a series of tasks that included picking up balls and dropping them into goals to score points.

The NIU team took two robots, its flying quadcopter, QUIN, and its remote-controlled ground vehicle, NIRV. Club President Mary Reinertson said she knew the robots were ready, but she still had some nerves going in to the contest.

“We knew QUIN could fly and we knew it could grab the balls, but we weren’t sure if it would be able to pick them up,” she said. “It’s harder for aerial robots to do certain tasks on the course than ground robots, which is why so few teams bring aerials.”

QUIN did not disappoint; the quadcopter took home first place and NIRV made it to the semifinals.

“It kind of feels full circle, because NIU Robotics started five years ago, and the first robot they started with was a quadcopter,” team member Hannah Higgins said. “Every year since then, every team has had an iteration of a quadcopter. It’s the first type of bot the club ever made and also the first bot to win.”

The team was hoping to build on its success from last year, when it made the semifinals for the first time. But this year’s NIRV was almost completely overhauled, with essentially everything but the wheels built new, so there was no telling how it would compete.

“After each round I kept turning to people and saying, ‘You know, we could win,’” team member Joel Rushton said.

NIU Robotics’ members are confident the team will continue to find success. At least half the team’s members are freshmen and sophomores who can return and apply this year’s lessons to next year’s bots.

In its 31st year, the MRDC is one of the oldest continuous student robotics competitions in the nation. This year’s competitors included NIU, UIUC, University of Illinois at Chicago, Illinois Institute of Technology, Northwestern, Valparaiso, College of DuPage, Southern Illinois University Carbondale and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

NIU Robotics is one of more than 20 engineering-focused student organizations in the NIU College of Engineering and Engineering Technology. The groups offer NIU students hands-on opportunities to put their education into practice. Students work in state-of-the-art labs and are mentored by world-class faculty.

Date posted: March 26, 2018 | Author: | Comments Off on NIU flying robot takes top prize at competition

Categories: Centerpiece Community Engineering and Engineering Technology Faculty & Staff Students

 

Xiaodan Hu

Xiaodan Hu, assistant professor in the Department of Counseling, Adult and Higher Education, will travel next month to Texas for an impressive honor.

Hu’s dissertation, “The Impact of Performance-based Funding on Community College Retention and Completion in Louisiana,” is the winner of the 2018 Council for the Study of Community Colleges Dissertation of the Year Award.

She will receive a $1,000 award honorarium/prize from a sponsor of the 2018 CSCC Conference.

Casey Ozaki, associate professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning of the University of North Dakota, informed Hu that her “dissertation has the potential to have a significant impact on the literature and policy.”

“In a year of very competitive nominees,” Ozaki wrote, “the committee agreed that your dissertation was an example of a rigorous and well-constructed research design and critically important findings that deepen the understanding performance-based funding and its impact on community college success.”

Meanwhile, her CSCC Dissertation of the Year award is an invitation to submit an article to the Community College Review (CCR). With support from CCR, her submission would go through the peer-review process with the hope for publication.

Joining CAHE’s Adult and Higher Education faculty last fall, Hu teaches courses related to community college leadership, finance and policy, and higher education administration.

Her research typically employs quantitative methods to examine the impact of state policies and institutional initiatives on colleges and universities, focusing on educational equity issues of historically underserved students and non-traditional students.

Date posted: March 21, 2018 | Author: | Comments Off on CAHE’s Xiaodan Hu celebrates ‘Dissertation of the Year’ award

Categories: Awards Faculty & Staff Homepage Research Students

Thirty-nine early childhood education students from NIU recently enjoyed inside looks at a Montessori school.

Donations to the NIU College of Education from alumni Anthony L. Kambich (B.S. ’59, Physical Education) and Carolyn A. Kambich (B.S. ’60, Elementary Education), founders of North Shore Montessori Schools in 1966, financed the Tuesday, Feb. 13, and Tuesday, Feb. 27, trips.

Stephanie DeSpain

“Students in my class last year were asking more about Montessori,” says Stephanie DeSpain, an assistant professor in the Department of Special and Early Education.

“When I talked to our chair, Greg Conderman, he said, ‘Well, we happen to have this funding to start to infuse some of the Montessori style and approach to teaching and learning in our classes to just expose our students to this other world of teaching young children,’ ” she adds. “This semester was kind of our first step in doing that.”

NIU students watched demonstrations by the school’s teachers and were able to ask questions of the faculty.

Montessori education, according to the North Shore website, “is based on Dr. Maria Montessori’s scientific observations of the young child … young children learn with great ease by simply ‘absorbing,’ like a sponge, everything to which they are exposed, rather than learning through logical analysis.”

Riverwoods Montessori School – one of three under the North Shore umbrella – provides a toddler program for 2-year-olds, a preschool classroom for ages 3 to 5 and a school-age classroom for children kindergarten through sixth-grade.

Arranged “in a homelike fashion for students to feel like they’re home,” DeSpain says, it features a living room of sorts in the middle of the school. Other familiar spaces include a regular kitchen, a dining room and a laundry room.

“It really does feel kind of like a home,” she says.

Called a “prepared environment,” the classroom is, according to the website, “designed to support these (developmental) periods of the children and allow them to easily learn at their own individual rhythm.”

A few Huskies were able to watch children in action as they stacked blocks and counted colored rods – these are called “manipulative materials” – to learn concepts such as quantifying and fractions.

Manipulatives, according to the website, are located “low on small shelves which are easily accessible to every child. This gives the children freedom, within the limits of safety and respect, to choose activities for themselves that they will succeed in doing. Many little successes build self-confidence and develop knowledge.”

“They have a three-stage lesson: I demonstrate, I have you show me and then I have you do it. That’s kind of how all their teaching is,” DeSpain says.

“When it’s introduced in our textbooks, it’s as a very child-directed approach to teaching, a natural environment where the teacher just serves as a guide and the children watch that guidance,” she adds. “We’ve not necessarily had that as a component of our program before. It’s a little bit outside of what our students are familiar with. That prompts a really good discussion, like, ‘Wow, how do I do these things when they’re child-directed?’ ”

Lauren Van Havermaet, a junior early childhood education major from Inverness, IL, enjoyed the trip.

“I thought it was very insightful because I hadn’t known a lot about Montessori,” Van Havermaet says. “They did a good job of showing us what the teachers do and what the kids do, and they showed us a different way of teaching.”

Van Havermaet was fascinated to see the Montessori teachers “never telling the kids that they were wrong” but focusing on “more of what they’re doing right.”

Children were interested in learning, she says, partly because they were able to choose their activities. One 4-year-old girl even was learning to sew using a shoelace.

She also noticed parallels between the Montessori method and the education of her boyfriend, who was homeschooled by his mother.

“The children were so well-behaved,” adds Van Havermaet, who appreciated that the children were generous in their sharing of toys and manipulative materials. “The whole classroom is very calm.”

NIU students also were curious about how Montessori schools serve children from diverse backgrounds, DeSpain says.

“When we talk about working with young children with special needs, we talk about supports and modifications,” she says. “In a Montessori school, children all work very independently. They grab the materials they want. They do the work they want. For a child with a disability, that might be more difficult.”

Those students who visited were grateful and excited by the opportunity to do so.

Early childhood is a unique field, DeSpain says, that offers careers in public preschools, private preschools, church-based preschools, Head Start programs and, of course, Montessori.

“Our candidates get a chance to go into a lot of early childhood settings, but Montessori is not one they typically get. With the donor funding, it really allowed us to go in and get that exposure to this other type of programming,” she says.

Some already have expressed a desire to undertake their student-teaching in a Montessori school, she adds.

“If a few students in your cohort walk away feeling inspired, empowered and passionate about the job they want to do, then these trips are worth it,” DeSpain says.

“At the end of the day, we want our students to go and get jobs. Everyone needs to feel like they’re going to work somewhere that fits them, and this gives them that exposure and helps them to understand what they need to do to become a credentialed Montessori teacher, which requires some more training,” she adds. “Or, if they found ideas to implement in their future teaching, but realized that Montessori was not the right fit for them, then that’s empowering as well.”

DeSpain hopes to make the field trips to Riverwoods a regular event, and also is planning to use some of the donor dollars to purchase some Montessori materials to place in a designated NIU College of Education classroom or the Learning Center.

That is likely to please Van Havermaet, who is open to borrowing Montessori concepts for her classroom.

And no matter where she finds work, she is eager to start.

“You get to teach kids the first things they learn, and that’s something they’re always going to take with them. They’re always going to need their social skills. They’re going to need their numbers, colors and words,” she says. “That just kind of draws me there, just to see the kids grow.

Date posted: March 21, 2018 | Author: | Comments Off on Early childhood majors visit Riverwoods Montessori School

Categories: Community Education Faculty & Staff Homepage Students

 

Paul Wright

Paul Wright has no problem stirring a lively conversation.

Not only is NIU’s EC Lane and MN Zimmerman Endowed Professor in Kinesiology and Physical Education a deft moderator, but the students in his KNPE 399: Sport and Diplomacy course are Honors Program students.

They’re opinionated, they’re smart and they want to talk.

Beyond that, the topic of the day on Monday, Feb. 12, is a hot one: South Korea, North Korea and the Olympics.

During that class meeting, just a few days after the torch roared to life to start the winter games, the discussion of possible reunification crackles with different opinions.

Alexandra Zdunek deems the Olympic-borne olive branches between the Koreas nothing but a publicity stunt perpetrated by the North. As the TV cameras gradually disappear, she says, so will the sudden show of cordiality that stunned the world.

“I don’t think reunification would be possible under this regime,” says the senior political science major from Crystal Lake, who plans to become a lawyer. “As soon as North Korea gets what it wants, they will pull out.”

Others in the NIU Honors course, having just watched the Korean athletes march together under a unified flag in the opening ceremonies, aren’t so sure.

Fundamental pride of nation, one classmate says, will begin “to win out” thanks to athletes from both Koreas competing together as teammates. Inspired by that solidarity, the student says, they will “drop the small stuff and go for it.”

Gestures of unity “really match the ideals of the Olympics,” another offers, talking of countries building bridges of cultural exchange in celebration of human potential and human performance.

Maybe the recreational aspects of sports and the “safe space of competition” would give Korean athletes from both sides of the demilitarized zone a good excuse not to talk policy or politics, another suggests.

Standing aside to let the conversation flow, Wright loves it all.

“What I really like about working with this group of students is that because they are confident about putting their thoughts out there, we are getting a range of opinions,” he says. “The rightness or wrongness of their answers is inconsequential. We’re having a good, rich discussion.”

January’s out-of-nowhere goodwill between the Koreas came as “a welcome surprise,” he says. He had developed the curriculum months earlier.

“That was serendipitous. We had no idea what was about to start brewing,” Wright says, “but this course is a natural extension of what I’ve been doing for the last 20 years. It’s sort of a progression in my scholarship. I have a solid grounding in, and a long history of, using sport for positive youth development.”

Students in Wright’s class come from several majors – none in the College of Education – that includes accountancy, electrical engineering, history, marketing and political science.

Their textbook, the newly published “Case Studies in Sport Diplomacy,” includes a chapter Wright wrote on his three-year (2013-16) project in Belize. It also examines similar work in Brazil, Central America, China, Haiti, Iran, New Zealand, Russia, South Sudan and, appropriately, Korea.

Class sessions are filled with history lessons.

Laying the groundwork to make sense of the current Korean situation began with a look 5,000 years in the past, tracing through the “Three Kingdoms” period of Korean history and centuries of interference or rule from China and Japan. The time of Japanese Colonial Rule, from 1910 to 1945, ended with World War II.

Wright then outlines the events that precipitated the Korean War and the various stages of its aftermath, including the three-decade struggle over communism and democracy and the decade of “co-existence” following the 1987 end of the Cold War.

Engagement began to improve in 1998, stopping in 2008 as North Korea found its footing and started to grow in power as it no longer found itself desperate for cooperation or help.

A decade later, the North is driven to acquire, keep and assert power – military, economic and political – while the South adheres to democracy and positive relations with other countries.

The Olympics have made ripples in the past, Wright says, but none like 2018, which “seems on track to be a vastly different story.”

Unification was planned for the 1960 games in Rome, for example, but the North abandoned those talks when the International Olympic Committee recognized both countries. When Seoul hosted the games in 1988, North Korea boycotted.

Despite those misses, he adds, a certain set of statistics reveals an interesting picture.

Eighty-five percent of the 55 socio-cultural exchanges between the Koreas between 1971 and 2017 involved sports. This includes unified teams for the 1990 Beijing Asian Games and the 1991 FIFA World Cup in Portugal.

“I am a lover of history, and I feel comfortable talking about those issues and my own curiosities and interests,” Wright says. “In much of the work I do with education, curriculum and schooling – that is my field – there are many things you can’t understand without first understanding the historical context: What shaped our school system? What was going on at the time?”

Building on the Olympics, he asked provocative questions during the games.

Do you think North Korean athletes will try to defect? If so, how do you think North Korea will go after them? What kind of “welcome home” will North Korean athletes receive if they fail to medal? How does the presence U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un’s sister play into all of this?

He’s also assigned students to watch sport-related movies, report to the class on what they saw and give the films a rating of “gold thumb, silver thumb or bronze thumb.”

“I try to mix things up a bit, have some fun,” Wright says. “We’re lucky to have several more weeks in this class to follow up on the Olympics: After all the bluster and all the drama is done regarding North and South Korea, what do we see sticking? Does the momentum fade and die? Does it take on new life?”

Students are gaining ideas of how the notion of diplomacy through sports can empower their future careers.

Maria Fracassi, a senior marketing major, calls Wright’s course “interesting.”

Although she considers herself a “mediocre sports fan – I watch when it’s exciting,” she knows that capitalizing on the universal affinity for sports can help to build the business relationships that she will depend on as a marketer.

“I never thought much about how sports can unify people,” Fracassi says. “I enjoy the conversations.”

Zakyrah Harris, a junior studying political science and philosophy, enrolled in Wright’s class because of her interest in the Colin Kaepernick-led NFL protests.

Before Kaepernick and his followers began kneeling during the national anthem, Harris says, she believed that sports always brought fans together. Now she’s surprised to learn that sports can cause military conflicts, such as the “Hundred Hour War” between Honduras and El Salvador “over something as small as a soccer game.”

“Dr. Wright is an amazing professor. He makes each class interesting,” she says. “He shows you how sports can bridge gaps and how different countries are able to come together politically or completely destroy each other.”

Zdunek agrees.

“He is really good at getting us engaged, especially when we’re all different majors,” she says. “He is very knowledgeable, and he wants to understand how we can use sport to better each other’s lives. That is such a big care for him.”

Wright is enjoying the class as much as his students.

“They’re really bringing in their different disciplines, and it’s fun to see what they’re being trained in. They’re talking about social issues around race, such as Brown v. Board of Education. They’re seeing connections to other courses they’re in that aren’t normally in our conversation about sport,” he says.

“I’m really pushing them to see behind every one of these stories and case studies we look at, to understand the motivation of the people we’re talking about, to connect the dots, to see what’s driving them,” he adds. “If you understand those things in the background, you can practice critical thinking and look behind the obvious. I’m sure they can apply that in every one of their different disciplines going forward.”

Date posted: March 21, 2018 | Author: | Comments Off on Sports Diplomacy course scores with great timing, conversations

Categories: Faculty & Staff Homepage Students

Benjamin Lee

The Northern Pact encompasses principles that outline the expectations we have for members of our community–being purposeful, just, caring, open, disciplined and celebrative. Each year, the Division of Student Affairs awards the Northern Pact scholarship to students who share this vision of service and personal responsibility.

Meet Benjamin Lee, one of the recipients of this year’s scholarships.
Hometown: Schaumburg, IL
Year in School: Sophomore
Major: Health and Human Sciences: Pre-Physical Therapy Emphasis

Why did you choose NIU?
I chose NIU because of the Pre-Physical Therapy Program. There were good opportunities for me to talk to the Physical Therapy (PT) professors. Another cool opportunity is that NIU has the Physical Therapy Clinic, which is my dream program right now, my top choice. NIU lets their pre-PT students go there and observe the skill-based training (SBT) students with the Doctor of Physical Therapy (D.P.T.), so you hopefully meet your future professors. It’s a great program.

Why are you studying pre-physical therapy?
I want to be an outpatient orthopedic physical therapist, so I’ll see a lot of patients with chronic pain. When a patient has chronic pain, they are usually going through a dark place in their life. The pain doesn’t just affect you physically, it affects you mentally, emotionally and spiritually. So, being a PT, it’ll give me a unique opportunity to invest, empower and impact those people’s lives.

What do you like most about NIU?
I love that everything is somewhat connected. For example, I’ll see the same students in different classes. I love that NIU is not too big. I don’t need to bike to class, I can just park and walk. I honestly like walking to classes and seeing nature, and that it’s not a built-up college campus like in the city. I also love a lot of the staff here. There are great professors here, they really invest in you and they care about you. For the big classes, the TAs are actually really good. There are really good graduate assistants that have helped me out in biology and chemistry, especially.

Who are your favorite professors and why?
My favorite professor would have to be Dr. Jen Jacobs. She’s my sports psychology professor. I walked into the class feeling a little uncertain but she helped me to gain confidence in the material by helping me understand it. She uses a lot of interactive techniques. She’ll make us go through group exercises in class and interact with her in class and discuss certain current topics pertaining to motivation, injury, optimal arousal, self-efficacy in sports. She makes the material come to life by applying it to our lives, that’s what I love about her.

What excites you most about your major?
Its potential and its flexibility. Physical therapists don’t just have to be physical therapists. We can work in hospitals, in-patient facilities, I could work in home health. I can work in patient orthopedics which is what I want to do. I could work in sports physical therapy with teams. There’s just so many things to do with a physical therapy degree. It’s also a growing profession. The job outlook right now is like 35 percent. There’s this movement right now that ‘movement is medicine,’ with the whole opioid crisis, instead of takings drugs, moving around is medicine. There a great vibe right now of progressing physical therapy. It’s exciting.

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned so far?
To be invested. Don’t just come to NIU to take. Come to give more than you take. Don’t come to NIU just to withdraw, come to invest as well. Invest in other students, your peers, through study groups, investing helps you learn the material better. Invest in your professors too, encourage them. Invest in the community, going to speeches and meetings, or even just picking up litter. Encouraging the maintenance staff, they are all over the place working hard and it’s cold out there. So invest, that’s what I’ve learned in my first year and a half.

Why should other students choose NIU?
NIU has a good balance here. It’s not too big and not too small. It’s easy to find like-minded students here. There are so many student groups and it’s good for networking. JobsPlus and Huskies Get Hired help you find career options, so choose NIU because there is a good balance here.

What is your career goal and why?
Twenty years from now I’d like to be teaching and giving back in a PT program but before that, I really want to make a difference in patients’ lives. The law in Illinois is that you can’t see a physical therapist without going through and getting a referral from a doctor first, I want to see that changed. If I open my own clinic, I want people to be able to come in and get treatment for their pain, instead of going through a doctor and paying more money for that process. I want to make access better and easier for patients.

Which Northern Pact Principal do you relate to the most?
Purposeful. That’s me. I like to rephrase that as intentionality which I would say is putting the why to the what. I totally relate to that one the most because why you do what you do will fuel what you do. It helps to avoid burnout. When I’m studying and it gets hard, I take a step back and remember why I’m studying – to get a high grade point average to get into PT school to help people. My why fuels my what. The Northern Pact keeps us accountable. It’s tangible, too. People always say be a good student but the Northern PACT makes it clear. [It provides] clarity for what a good student looks like.

Do you know students who exemplify the principles of the Northern Pact? Encourage them to apply online for the 2018-19 Northern Pact scholarship.

Date posted: March 21, 2018 | Author: | Comments Off on Meet Northern Pact Scholar Benjamin Lee

Categories: Faculty & Staff Homepage Students

The NIU Chemistry Club invites the public to its spring 2018 Chemistry Demo Night at 6:30 p.m. Friday, March 30, in the Carl Sandburg Auditorium of the Holmes Student Center.

The theme will be “Chem-Olympics,” in honor of the recent Winter Olympics, and the free event will feature chemistry with colorful reactions and effects. Doors open at 6 p.m.

“It’s a fun, family-oriented event that will be of particular interest to young people with an interest in science,” said Alexander Miller, the Chem-Demo coordinator. “There’s a bit of flash and pizazz to the experiments that should pique the public’s interest in chemistry.”

The annual event typically draws a large audience. This semester’s demonstrations include ping-pong-ball explosions, melting Styrofoam, pressure imploding cans, a liquid nitrogen plume, “elephant toothpaste” and a model car powered by baking soda and vinegar.

The evening also will feature a Chem Club specialty – liquid nitrogen ice cream.

Faculty advisers helping with this semester’s demo preparations include Oliver Hofstetter, Timothy Hagen, Narayan Hosmane, Lee Sunderlin and Chong Zheng.

The experiments for the evening will include bright flashes of light, fire and heat, and intermittent periods of low light and/or darkness. For safety precautions, members of the audience are prohibited from siting in the auditorium’s first two rows.

Parking will be available in the NIU Parking Deck along the west side of Normal Road, about one block north of Lincoln Highway (Route 38), or in the nearby visitor lot on Carroll Avenue, just west of the parking garage.

For more information, contact Alexander Miller at z1715195@students.niu.edu.

 

Date posted: March 21, 2018 | Author: | Comments Off on Chemistry Club promises flash and pizazz in upcoming public demo

Categories: Centerpiece Community Events Faculty & Staff Students

 

Josie Hyslop

The Northern Pact encompasses principles that outline the expectations we have for members of our community–being purposeful, just, caring, open, disciplined and celebrative. Each year, the Division of Student Affairs awards the Northern Pact scholarship to students who share this vision of service and personal responsibility.

Meet transfer student Josie Hyslop, one of the recipients of this year’s scholarships.

Hometown: Gardner, IL
Year: Third-Year
Major: Accountancy
Transferred From: Joliet Junior College

Which Northern Pact Principal do you relate to the most?
I relate to ‘Open.’ Especially being a transfer student, you have to be open to a lot of new things, not necessarily that I’ve been exposed to before. Just being open to meeting new people and trying new things. I’ve always considered myself open but probably had to put that more to use when I got here, stepping out of my comfort zone.

What does the Northern Pact mean to you?
I think that it’s awesome. I think the whole world should have pacts that they’re held accountable to. It’s great to go to a school that really cares and puts forth certain principals that we should be upholding. It’s important to me that the school thinks it’s important.

Why did you transfer to NIU?
I attended a transfer open house with my best friend who also studies here. She gave me a behind-the-scenes tour of campus, and I heard how great the business program was so I decided to come here. It was easy.

What advice do you have for future transfer students?
Take advantage of every opportunity that’s thrown at you. You will have lots of opportunities to participate in great things. I joined the accounting society. It’s really nice because it really helps you to figure out your career path. Coming in as a transfer student, I benefitted by being involved in passport events through the College of Business, too. I’m also an honors student, so I attend their events as well. I’m meeting a lot of people and gaining great experience.

What do you like most about NIU?
I like walking into Barsema Hall and feeling like I fit in. I’m always going somewhere and no matter where I go, I see a kind, welcoming face. Everyone is super helpful here. The academic program is great, it really pushes me. I’m studying accounting. I chose accountancy because, after my senior year of high school, I got an accounting internship, which gave me a lot of good exposure. I really liked it, and I feel like it is a good fit for me here at NIU.

Do you know students who exemplify the principles of the Northern Pact? Encourage them to apply online for the 2018-19 Northern Pact scholarship.

Date posted: March 19, 2018 | Author: | Comments Off on Meet Northern Pact Scholar Josie Hyslop

Categories: Business Faculty & Staff Homepage Prospective Students Students

Chief Phillips and and Bob Phifer

For 25 years as a police officer at Northern Illinois University, Bob Phifer protected hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom never knew that he was a pioneer.

When Phifer, now 72, joined the force in 1968, he became the first black police officer in DeKalb County. To honor him for his service, and for his role as a trailblazer, the NIU Police and Public Safety Department renamed the room where officers start every shift “The Robert Phifer Roll Call Room.” The announcement was made in February as part of an annual ceremony honoring officers for anniversaries, promotions and other accomplishments.

Current Police Chief Tom Phillips said that when he left the University of Chicago police force to take the NIU job in 2013, he was surprised to find very little commemoration of the force’s past achievements.

“I wanted to engage with former officers and become better connected with our history,” Phillips said. He learned that the department’s first African-American officer had retired in 1993 but still lived just blocks from the campus. So he gave Phifer a call.

Phillips just wanted to collect some memories and maybe a photo to display. “But when I met Bob, I found out he had never gotten a retirement badge.” Many police departments give such badges to their departing personnel.

“Bob pulled out his retirement ID card and it was in mint condition. So I said I’d like to give him a retirement badge. After locating one other former officer who also had never received a retirement badge, we had a ceremony last year and remedied that situation.”

Phifer grew up in North Carolina during the era of segregation and civil rights protests. In 1964, he joined the Army, trained as a military policeman and served in Vietnam from 1964 to 1966.

“When he left the Army, he moved to DeKalb to be near an aunt who lived here,” Phillips said. “Because of his MP experience, he applied for an opening at the NIU police department and was hired.

“I can’t imagine what it must have been like for Bob to be the first African-American officer in the county,” Phillips said, noting that today NIU is proud to have the most diverse police force in DeKalb County.

Phifer was seriously wounded in the line of duty in 1973 when he answered a call about a man acting erratically in Stevenson Hall. As he and other officers fought to subdue the intruder, the man grabbed one of the officers’ guns and fired it. A piece of shrapnel from the bullet hit Phifer in one eye, permanently blinding him on that side. Phifer continued working at NIU for two more decades.
Sadly, just a week after the roll-call room was named for Phifer, he suffered a stroke. But Phillips said Phifer is undergoing rehabilitation and is expected to recover.

Date posted: March 19, 2018 | Author: | Comments Off on NIU police honor first African-American officer

Categories: Centerpiece Community Faculty & Staff Safety Students

Illinois’ most creative young problem-solvers will arrive at NIU in 120 teams from throughout the state for the Illinois Destination Imagination Affiliate Tournament on Saturday, March 24.

This statewide competition allows the top elementary, junior high and high school aged teams from each region to compete in a variety of creative hands-on challenges related to STEM, fine arts and service learning. Winning teams in each challenge and division will advance to the Global Finals at the University of Tennessee in May.

Diana Dignan, co-affiliate director of Destination Imagination (DI) Illinois, says, “We have students from all over the state of Illinois and even from Iowa coming to this tournament. We’re very excited about showing NIU to our teams from throughout the state, as well as showing the NIU community what Destination Imagination is all about.”

Amy Jo Clemens, assistant director of NIU’s Center for P-20 Engagement, says, “Student competitions in academic areas are as valuable for children as student competitions in athletics. When students start competing against other teams and move into an organized program like Destination Imagination, they are building their skills beyond the classroom, meeting other students with like interests and meeting professionals who will help support and grow them into their career area.”

Clemens continues, “These competitions are also ways to help students develop ‘soft skills,’ or employability skills like working in teams, good communication and learning to meet high expectations.”

According to Dignan, working together to solve problems creatively is central to the mission of Destination Imagination, a volunteer-led non-profit dedicated to empowering students to thrive in an ever-changing economy.

“Last week at one of our tournaments, we had a high school team signed up to do an improv theater challenge,” Dignan says. “They watched another type of challenge and said, ‘We want to try that, too.’ So they gathered supplies from things that were on hand, they borrowed a tool or a piece of wood from other groups, and the groups all rallied around to cheer on that team as they solved the challenge.”

“We want to see that creativity, that way of looking at life and saying, ‘I can do that,’” Dignan continues. “In these tournaments, kids are building skills that they’re going to use for the rest of their lives.”

Each year, more than 100 NIU student volunteers dedicate their time to make the statewide tournament a reality.

“These students act as ambassadors for NIU, helping to welcome and direct the hundreds of families who come to our DeKalb campus from all over the state,” says NIU volunteer recruiter Sara Finnigan. “They help run the event by acting as score runners, working the registration table and the raffle table, and helping to set-up and take-down. These student volunteers represent NIU to a younger generation of students and their families.”

In addition to competing in team challenges, the Destination Imagination participants and their families will also have a chance to explore the NIU campus and get a taste of some of the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) possibilities available at NIU.

Highlights will involve tours of the NIU Engineering Building offered by NIU engineering students at 1 p.m., as well as a STEM demonstration show by the NIU P-20 Center’s STEM Outreach team at 5 p.m. at the NIU Convocation Center.

According to STEM educator Jeremy Benson, the excitement and creativity of the Destination Imagination competition are contagious and make this demo show one of the best of the year. “We love the creativity and ingenuity of the entire DI event, and we like to include that energy in our show,” Benson says.

He continues, “This year’s show will feature some of our favorite demos, including a few liquid nitrogen experiments, as well as some on light and color using our rainbow diffraction glasses. Because of the number of people we have for the DI show each year, we like to bring out some of our bigger demos that we don’t get to use as often, which is fun for everyone.”

According to Dignan, all Destination Imagination tournaments are open to the public with no fee. “A tournament is one of the coolest ways to see what Destination Imagination is all about,” she says.

The tournament will begin at 8 a.m. with check-in at NIU’s Wirtz Hall. Volunteers in Wirtz Hall will be able to guide participants and spectators to challenges taking place across campus. Tours of the Engineering Building will take place at 1 p.m. The NIU STEM Outreach demo show will take place at 5 p.m. at the Convocation Center, followed by an award ceremony.

Date posted: March 19, 2018 | Author: | Comments Off on NIU hosts Destination Imagination statewide tournament on March 24

Categories: Community Engineering and Engineering Technology Events Faculty & Staff Homepage Prospective Students Students

Jobs PLUS will travel to DeKalb High School on Thursday, March 29, for the 2018 Community Expo hosted by the DeKalb and Sycamore Chambers of Commerce. The Jobs PLUS event, “The Lost Art of Good Networking: The Importance of Active Listening,” will provide students with the opportunity to practice their active listening skills in a networking setting while learning about local businesses and community organizations.

The Jobs PLUS event is split into two parts. Part one will feature an online component students will complete ahead of time. Part two of the event will occur at DeKalb High School during the Community Expo and will allow students to interact with community partners using the knowledge they learned from the online component.

The content for the online component was created by Melissa Fickling, assistant professor in Counseling, Adult and Higher Education with assistance from Lori Korth and Fahad Alenezi, graduate assistants for Jobs PLUS.

This is the second consecutive year a Jobs PLUS event has been integrated with the Community Expo. Director of Jobs PLUS Chad Glover and DeKalb Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Matt Duffy began brainstorming on ideas shortly after the Community Expo last year.

Matt Duffy

“This in an effort to take two things we think are valuable for our students, active listening and learning more about the DeKalb and Sycamore communities, and integrate them into one event,” said Glover. “I really want to thank Melissa for stepping forward to design the content and Fahad and Lori for their important contributions. I also want to thank Matt for his continued support in our efforts to bring our program into the local community in a variety of ways.”

Online registration is required for Jobs PLUS events and students are encouraged to sign up early. This event has five one-hour time slots to choose from, starting at 3:30 p.m., 4 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. Students can provide their own transportation to DeKalb High School that day or ride a shuttle that will be departing from the Holmes Student Center.

Jobs PLUS events are free and open to all NIU students. If a student’s employer is a Jobs PLUS partner, the student may be eligible to attend select Jobs PLUS events on their paid work time with permission from their employer. Students interested in connecting their employer to Jobs PLUS can self-report where they are working.

The public portion of the Community Expo from 4 – 7 p.m. is open to all NIU faculty, staff and students to attend. Several NIU departments will be on hand at the event.

SaveSaveSaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

Date posted: March 14, 2018 | Author: | Comments Off on Jobs PLUS event features a partnership with DeKalb and Sycamore Chambers of Commerce

Categories: Community Homepage Students