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The 2017-18 cohort of Research Rookies has been named! The NIU Research Rookies Program links undergraduate freshmen, sophomore and first-semester transfer students with faculty mentors in their major or area of interest to conduct a small-scale research or artistry project.

A total of 44 NIU undergraduate students have been named as Research Rookies for the program’s eighth year on campus. This year’s cohort represents five undergraduate colleges and over 23 departments. Research Rookies have come from as close as DeKalb, IL, and as far away as Concepcion, Chile.

As a Research Rookie, students learn what research looks like in their field of study, how to write a formal project proposal, gain experience working alongside talented faculty, and attend professional and academic enrichment activities. Additionally, students will present their work at the annual Undergraduate Research and Artistry Day and receive a $500 stipend at the completion of the program.

This year’s cohort will be working on many fascinating projects with a wide array of topics covered. Eli Brottman, a freshman mathematics and computer science double-major, is analyzing how produce — specifically salad greens — can be most efficiently distributed to low-income communities around the United States. Using mathematical optimization software, Brottman hopes to be able to minimize the total distance traveled to these locations in anticipation of lowering the costs of the produce. Aspen Wheeler (geology major), a second-year Rookie and peer mentor in the program, is working to understand how feldspar grains could serve as an energy source for microbes living underneath nearly a mile of ice on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Participating in Research Rookies is the perfect way for highly motivated students to connect with one another as well as with supportive faculty and staff. Past Research Rookies have gone on to become  SROP, SEF and USOAR participants; Lincoln LaureatesResearch Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) ParticipantsFermiLab Summer Internships in Science and Technology (SIST) ParticipantsForward Together Forward Scholarship RecipientsHonors Scholars and McKearn Fellows.

For more information on the program, visit the Research Rookies website. Contact the Office of Student Engagement and Experiential Learning by calling 815-753-8154 or sending an email to ResearchRookies@niu.edu with any inquiries you may have.

 

 

Date posted: October 23, 2017 | Author: | Comments Off on 2017-18 NIU Research Rookies off to a great start 

Categories: Faculty & Staff Homepage Research Students

Erin Heath

Erin Heath, associate director of government relations for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), will visit campus next month to talk about federal funding for scientific research.

Her presentation, which is part of NIU’s PI Academy Professional Development series, will be held from 3-5 p.m. Monday, Nov. 6, in room 200 of LaTourette Hall. The event is open to the public and will be of high interest to faculty, students and administrators interested in federal research funding and policy priorities.

“Erin Heath will bring great depth of experience and a voice directly from the Washington, D.C.-based scientific society to campus to discuss national science policy under the current administration and Congress,” said Dara Little, NIU’s assistant vice president for Research and Sponsored Programs Administration.

“Erin will talk about the federal budgeting process and the negotiations that often occur between Congress and the President to ultimately fund federal programs, including grant programs,” Little added. “She is extremely knowledgeable about science policy, and as a former journalist, she is skilled at media training and outreach.”

The talk will also highlight current events influencing the federal research and development landscape, and how program funding shifts under different administrations. NIU Director of Federal Relations Anna Quider, who is based in Washington, D.C., will join Heath to inform participants about advocacy efforts by NIU at the national level to support science funding and how they can engage directly in these policy discussions.

AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science. The AAAS Office of Government Relations provides timely, objective information on science and technology issues to lawmakers, and it assists scientists in understanding and getting involved in the policy process.

Heath serves as AAAS’s liaison to state and local science education advocates. She also co-chairs the Coalition for National Science Funding, the Engaging Scientists and Engineers in Policy Coalition and the Golden Goose Awards, while also heading the selection committee for the AAAS Science and Technology Congressional Fellowships.

Date posted: October 23, 2017 | Author: | Comments Off on AAAS representative to deliver Nov. 6 talk on federal funding for science

Categories: Community Faculty & Staff Homepage Parents Prospective Students Students

NIU is embarking on a new phase of accreditation by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), and university leaders are asking the NIU community to participate.

Accreditation by the HLC is a key way that NIU publicly demonstrates its commitment to quality and accountability to those the university serves. As part of that process, the university is beginning to collect documentation of activities over the past four years.

Linda Saborio, University Council executive secretary and Faculty Senate president, is one of 40 members of a team comprised of faculty and staff volunteers from across campus who are assuming this step in the accreditation process. She said the HLC Assurance Review provides NIU with the opportunity to assess the quality and effectiveness of NIU’s research and educational programs, leadership and mission so that the university can address any challenges and reaffirm its commitment to offering high-quality education.

“For faculty, it is important to maintain, or even exceed, standards of quality as determined by the HLC. The accreditation sends a statement to the public that we are an institution committed to high values, and this can impact our ability to recruit and retain exceptional faculty, staff and students,” Saborio said.

The university was reaccredited by the HLC for 10 years (until 2024), the maximum period possible. Following that process in 2014, NIU transitioned into the least restrictive HLC pathway, called the Open Pathway, for maintaining accreditation. NIU’s next requirement within the Open Pathway is to complete an Assurance Review, due Monday, June 18, 2018.

During this step, the university must develop an assurance argument that includes documentation demonstrating how NIU fulfills each of the five accreditation criteria and the associated 21 core components. The five criteria are Mission; Ethical and Responsible Conduct; Teaching and Learning–Quality, Resources, and Support; Teaching and Learning–Evaluation and Improvement; and Resources, Planning, and Institutional Effectiveness.

“From my perspective, the HLC assurance review process is an important opportunity for NIU to reflect collectively on the progress we’ve made toward achieving our institutional goals and provide evidence that illustrates our successes,” said Jason Rhode, director of the Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center. “The subcommittee members are working diligently on the significant task of documenting our progress institutionally since our last accreditation self-study in 2013, and collecting tangible examples of how we are continually striving to realize our mission and vision.”

Currently, the NIU teams associated with these criteria are collecting evidence that covers the period from Jan. 1, 2014, to Dec. 31, 2017, for the assurance argument. While the team of 40 volunteers is taking on this task, the Office of Institutional Effectiveness asks that the entire NIU community actively participate in the process and be ready to respond to requests for information.

The team is also requesting that division websites and organizational charts are up to date because HLC peer reviewers do not make a site visit during this step in the process, so they are dependent on what they can glean from the websites during their review process.

For more information on the assurance review process, please contact Carolinda Douglass, vice provost for Institutional Effectiveness, at 815-753-0492 or cdoug@niu.edu.

Date posted: October 23, 2017 | Author: | Comments Off on HLC Assurance Review process underway

Categories: Centerpiece Faculty & Staff

Teens who find themselves on the wrong side of the law are nothing new – such stories have flickered on movie screens for a century – but the need to identify new strategies to support them never ends.

A new course in the NIU Department of Counseling, Adult and Higher Education this fall is providing specific preparation for counselors to understand the family, societal and institutional factors that can contribute to pre-adjudication, adjudication and acclimation back to communities.

“Juvenile Justice: Education, Preventions, Interventions and Counseling Strategies” is offered by the College of Education to graduate students, advanced undergraduate students and counselors in the field.

Professor Teresa Fisher conceived the course when she realized that many of her doctoral students shared her research interest in the concept of resiliency.

Some of those students worked with juveniles as counselors and probation officers; others spent time in the “juvie” system themselves. All of her co-instructors bring experience with the criminal justice system.

“Making one wrong decision can create a very negative cycle for youth. They can get caught up in the system, and start a path with gang involvement and recidivism,” says Fisher, a professor of counseling in the College of Education. “I want students in the course to get a comprehensive view of young people becoming involved with juvenile justice.”

Unfortunately, it’s a complex picture.

Common factors include trauma, poverty, mental illness, substance abuse, a lack of positive role models and family environments and histories that tend to perpetuate life outside the law, she says.

Detention centers are rife with issues. “They often get a bad rap for not being very effective,” she says. “They don’t always have counselors who can address the specific needs of youth offenders, and gang behavior is often maintained.

Schools pose multiple challenges.

Students dealing with chronic tardiness or truancy can easily end up in the “school-to-prison pipeline.” This is primarily due to the increase of police officers in the schools, Fisher says, adding that minor infractions that were previously resolved by school officials now lead to records in the juvenile justice system.

Students in Fisher’s course will learn how to identify those teens who are on destructive paths as well as preventive measures to steer those teens toward more productive lives.

Instructors also will teach effective counseling strategies that can help put teens already in the system on a positive footing when they return to their communities.

Field trips are planned to juvenile detention centers for students to better comprehend teens, their needs and the programming provided to assist them. These encounters will prove mutually beneficial to the teens and the college students, Fisher says.

“We will have an opportunity to present directly to small groups that are detained – personal development skills, anger management, conflict resolution, goal-setting,” she says.

Students can use some of that time to conduct focus-group sessions to learn directly from the youth: Have they been detained before? If so, why are they back again? What do they like or dislike about the facility? What will help them get out of the juvenile justice system?

“Frequently, people who’ve not been in detention will think, ‘Oh, these youth are not approachable,’ or, ‘They’re so much different than I am,’” Fisher says. “I want students to understand, ‘These are young people who didn’t have the same opportunities that I had, or didn’t have the skills I had. However, we’re more similar than different.’”

The course also will discuss ways to work with parents of youth in – or close to – becoming involved in the system.

Fisher will encourage students to teach parents about effective communication, how to set ground rules, how to understand behavioral change and how to create age-appropriate consequences as well as reward systems to support positive behavior.

Students will learn the importance of a youth advocate: “It’s possible that even if my students touch just one youth, they may help them re-direct their path from the criminal justice system.”

Date posted: October 16, 2017 | Author: | Comments Off on New juvenile justice course explores ways to lower number of youth entering ‘the system’

Categories: Centerpiece Faculty & Staff Students

Legendary grunge rocker Chris Cornell committed suicide Thursday, May 18, in his hotel room following a concert in Detroit.

Only two months later, on Thursday, July 20, Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington took his own life at home in California. Bennington had performed at Cornell’s memorial service. The two had been friends. Between them, they left nine children, some as young as 6.

Members of the media – the music media, especially – scrambled for answers. Why? Why now? Were there signs? Could anyone have helped? In the end, their reporting took the shape of rise-and-fall stories that shed little light on what caused the tragedies of May 18 and July 20.

The all-too-real deaths of Cornell and Bennington exist alongside the pop-culture sphere of the fictional TV series, “13 Reasons Why,” which has renewed intense scrutiny, conversation and controversy throughout the nation for its stark depiction of teen suicide.

But conversation on uncomfortable topics is important, says Suzanne Degges-White, chair of the NIU Department of Counseling, Adult and Higher Education.

Beyond those fears, she adds, “suicide is still a taboo subject. It’s something we don’t mention, and there’s a lot of shame and stigma for people who’ve lost someone to suicide. It’s a fear that they’ll be looked down upon.”

Five panelists will explore topics of suicide from 6 – 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 12, in the Barsema Alumni and Visitors Center, 231 N. Annie Glidden Road. The event is free and open to the public; a reception will take place from 5:30 – 6 p.m.

Panelists include Adam Carter, an assistant professor of trauma counseling in the Department of Counseling, Adult and Higher Education; and Brooke Ruxton, director of Counseling and Consulting Services at NIU.

Others on the panel are Laura Bartosik, co-founder of Project Seth; Stephanie Weber, executive director, Suicide Prevention Services of America; and Vince Walsh-Rock, assistant principal for Counseling and Student Support Services at Downers Grove South High School.

Degges-White will moderate the discussion, leading the panelists through questions that identify ways in which the average person can recognize the warning signs and feel prepared to speak up.

Her colleagues will also explore topics of self-injury and supportive services provided by schools.

Members of the audience who are mourning the suicides of friends and loved ones will hear valuable tips for working through their grief, Degges-White says. Counselors will attend the event, she adds, and will make themselves available for anyone in need that evening.

And conversation is the goal of “Suicide Prevention: Sharing Strategies of Care,” the latest installment in the College of Education’s Community Learning Series.

“Suicide is a topic a lot of people are afraid to address,” Degges-White says. “They’re afraid that if they talk about it, they might make someone commit suicide or want to commit suicide. They think that if they bring it up, they might be planting seeds of an idea – and that’s not true.”

“If you’ve lost someone to suicide, this is a safe place – and a good opportunity to hear the stories of others,” Degges-White says. “Laura Bartosik lost her son to suicide, and she has turned her grief into positive action. She created Project Seth, a foundation where they promote suicide awareness.”

The Oct. 12 event fits well with a $300,000 grant received last fall from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to decrease stigma around mental health and to promote resilience in the NIU community.

NIU’s three-year grant, which is shared by the Department of Counseling, Adult and Higher Education and Counseling and Consultation Services, funds various training programs and an awareness campaign.

“The connections that we’re making through the grant really indicated that this topic needs to be addressed in multiple areas and not just to our campus,” Degges-White says. “It’s important to talk about this topic. Suicide should never be perceived as an acceptable option to solve a problem.”

For more information, call 815-753-1448 or email cahe@niu.edu.

Date posted: October 11, 2017 | Author: | Comments Off on Community Learning Series will explore awareness, prevention of ‘taboo’ subject of suicide

Categories: Community Faculty & Staff Homepage Parents Students

Motivated by an effort to deliver the most efficient and cost-effective services, the students and staff of the Holmes Student Center (HSC) were hard at work this summer making several strategic changes to consolidate campus services and gear up for an impending renovation. These changes will ultimately save the university financial resources while increasing the direct impact our students will have through on-campus jobs at the HSC.

One of the most notable changes is the removal of the Information Desk near the Promenade Lounge. The information desk area is now being re-purposed as a pocket lounge for students, registration and welcome space for large events, and may eventually play home to a first-of-its-kind tech showcase with Interactive Intelligent Devices (think Google Home and Amazon Alexa). Resulting from a partnership between the Holmes Student Center and the Division of Information Technology, these devices will help guide people through the building and provide valuable campus information.

Many of the services previously located at the Information Desk have moved down the hall to the Hotel Desk, now called the Holmes Student Center Welcome Desk. Here, people can inquire about the location of offices within the HSC, obtain general directions on and around campus, find out event locations within the HSC, purchase tickets for the Elburn Shuttle, and of course, make hotel reservations for any of our 77 rooms and suites at the Hotel at Holmes.

The Guest Services Office, Operations Crew and Event Production Services (EPS)(formerly a part of Student Involvement and Leadership Development) have joined forces to form Operation Services. Located down the hall from the College Grind, this team is responsible for functions including basic building operations and security, lost and found, and short-term laptop rental. Students from this department, led by Operation Services Manager Brooke Lawrence, are responsible for daily HSC operations after 4 p.m. as well as general event security and meeting support both at the HSC and at a host of other campus locations.

Also newly re-imagined, the Reservations and Event Management office has replaced the general office. Open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., this office serves on-campus clients with their reservation needs, including tabling in the Center Café, hallway window displays, meeting rooms, event spaces in the HSC and several outdoor spaces across campus. Many EPS functions are also reserved through this office, with forms to request service available on the Holmes Student Center website. Student event coordinators work with NIU’s 300 plus student organizations to assist them in coordinating services like audio visual, space layout and set up, staffing, and catering for their on-campus social events. Likewise, Public Function Supervisors Connie Rolon and Patti Gingrich assist NIU departments with their reservation needs.

This is the start of a very exciting time for all of the campus as these changes are only the beginning! As early as summer of 2018, the HSC will undergo a massive, $20 million renovation aimed at creating a more vibrant and inviting space for all students and campus visitors to enjoy. To follow along with renovation plans and updates, or if you have any questions about our exciting changes, visit www.niu.edu/hsc or email hsc@niu.edu.

Date posted: October 11, 2017 | Author: | Comments Off on Holmes Student Center makes changes in preparation for renovation

Categories: Community Faculty & Staff Homepage Parents Prospective Students Students

Scholars who assembled at Michigan State University for the first National Symposium on LGBTQ Research in Higher Education focused on methodology and practice.

Among them that day in 2014, was Z Nicolazzo, a soon-to-be NIU College of Education professor who studies trans* collegians with a particular emphasis on trans* student resilience and kinship-building.

Nicolazzo’s memories from that event include hearing the loud-and-clear invitation for another institution to host the next gathering. Three years later, ze and Department of Counseling, Adult and Higher Education colleagues Katy Jaekel and Carrie Kortegast are the first to answer that call – and with a different and expanded premise in mind.

Called “Working the Intersections,” the second national symposium will take place Saturday, Oct. 14, at NIU. Researchers, faculty, staff and students from across the United States and Canada are expected to attend.

“Our theme is really thinking about how gender and sexuality show up alongside a lot of other identities and experiences,” Nicolazzo says. “We were really intentional when we called for papers.”

“When we talk about things like gender and sexuality, oftentimes particular identities are left out,” adds Jaekel, whose research agenda includes the classroom experiences of LGBTQ students. “We want to be more inclusive, and we hopefully want to generate some new knowledge.”

Keynote speaker Dafina-Lazarus (D-L) Stewart, professor of higher education and student affairs at Colorado State University, will speak at 8:30 a.m. Kristen Renn, a professor of higher, adult and lifelong education at Michigan State University, gives the closing address at 4:30 p.m.

In between are several paper-and-panel sessions, roundtable sessions and a PechaKucha plenary session, all geared to illuminate emerging knowledge, trends and conversations of LGBTQ research.

Under the “Intersections” theme, participants will discuss the experiences of LGBTQ people of color – “it’s vastly under-researched in our field,” Nicolazzo says – as well as how LGBTQ identities coexist with disability, spirituality, religion and more.

Exploring these topics is critically important, both say, especially for those in higher education.

Many faculty members and Student Affairs professionals don’t put LGBTQ issues up for discussion, Jaekel says, because such topics are often considered “value-neutral.” Others believe they don’t know enough, she adds, or are afraid to misspeak.

“While many people think that because things like gay marriage have occurred, and there’s been an increase in civil rights, that these issues have been solved and everything is better,” Jaekel says. “The truth is there continues to be a group of students who have particular needs.”

And, Nicolazzo says, that population is on the rise.

“All indications are that there are three- to six times more people identifying as transgender below the age of 18 than over 18 – that’s our college-going demographic. We have more LGBTQ students in higher ed, and we need to meet the diversity of our students, faculty and staff in college environments,” ze says.

“We also have a growing awareness that there are LGBTQ faculty and staff at institutions of higher education,” ze adds, “so I think it’s important to not only highlight the research of those folks who are LGBTQ but to also highlight the work about LGBTQ people.”

Both are excited that a large number of students have registered to attend the symposium.

“It’s really important for students, and particularly LGBTQ students, to see what Laverne Cox calls ‘Possibility Models’ – models of who they can become in the future,” Nicolazzo says. “A lot of folks who are interested in doing research, or are interested in teaching, but identify as queer and trans* might not think they can do it because they don’t see a lot of faculty who are queer and trans*.”

“Different privileges are afforded to some and less to others, so we really wanted to highlight that,” Jaekel adds. “A lot of times, we look only to experts for knowledge and truth about gender and sexuality. Students have much to offer us, and highlighting different voices and different positions, we can learn from one another. Everyone can be deemed the expert of their own experience.”

The College of Education colleagues hope their participants share wisdom, gain insights, create knowledge and leave energized.

“Because I know we have so many students coming as participants, one of my main goals is for them to develop some good mentoring relationships and networks that might last beyond the conference,” Nicolazzo says.

Hir personal goals likely apply to all of the scholars coming to the symposium.

“I’m really hoping that we can continue to practice how we share our information in ways that are understandable for the broader public,” ze says. “I’ve become really good at talking to other gender scholars about why my work matters. What I really want to become better at is making my working understandable to people who don’t do this kind of work at all.”

For more information, email LGBTQsymposium@gmail.com.

Date posted: October 11, 2017 | Author: | Comments Off on Working the Intersections: Symposium brings practitioners in LGBTQ research to campus

Categories: Centerpiece Faculty & Staff Students

When faculty and staff in NIU’s Industrial Management and Technology program look for hands-on experiences and mentors in the field, they don’t have to look far. The program – which offers a concentration in environmental safety and health – has built a strong, mutually beneficial relationship with departments across campus whose workers regularly encounter the issues they teach about in their classrooms.

Engineering Technology professors William Mills and Theodore Hogan have worked to amass the network of more than 100 NIU employees who have provided experiential learning, tours, projects and mentoring for their students.

“We are especially thankful to Scott Mooberry, director of the NIU Environmental Health and Safety Office, because he has facilitated all of the connections between Facilities Management & Campus Services, and is currently helping us establish relationships with the other administrative services that ensure our campus is a great place to learn,” Hogan said.

Recent examples of these collaborations include students shadowing NIU shop employees to learn about their work and then preparing and delivering shop-specific training. Another class in the program learned about fall protection equipment and practices from a supervisor working in the Convocation Center catwalks. Another class prepared drafts of Chemical Hazard Training for Building Services workers. Students have also done ergonomic studies, chemical exposure measurements and noise measurements across the campus.

This semester, students are visiting the NIU East Chilled Water Plant and are doing projects on environmental sustainability and waste management reviews across many departments on campus. Other students will partner with campus employees in assigned shops or departments on campus to come up with safety plans for specific aspects of their job and will present those in teams to the class.
The Industrial Management and Technology program offers a concentration in Environmental Safety and Health. Students majoring in public health, energy and environmental technology, and environmental studies also take classes in the program.

“The employees teach the students about their work and related hazards and controls,” Hogan said. “The students make chemical and noise exposure measurements, conduct safety surveys and learn how to deliver effective safety training.”

Hogan said an important part of the experience is that students learn how to partner with workers to effectively implement safety, instead of dictating requirements.

“All of these experiences have been an important factor in students getting jobs after graduation,” Hogan said, adding graduates of the safety program are in high demand, with extensive recruiting from alumni. “It’s a rewarding job, one that helps others.”

Jason Porter is an alumnus of the program who now works as a safety specialist at Nestle Professional in Chicago, IL. He said he chose the major because he liked being involved in hands-on activities in an industrial environment.

“I grew up fixing things with my grandfather and father so that played a huge part in my decision,” he said.

Porter said that for him, the mentoring aspect of the program was critical.

“They instructed their classes with real-life experiences from their own careers in the occupational health and safety field and that was key,” he said. “They knew the obstacles that a safety professional would go through, so they taught us how to overcome those.”

Another program alum, Timi Adeboje, currently works as a production supervisor at a Nestle USA plant in Itasca, IL. He said Hogan’s teaching style, wide professional network and seemingly endless scope of resources helped prepare him for his current role. Adeboje said he appreciated the exposure to safety experts and professionals from different industries.

“From OSHA trainers to ergonomic specialists to experienced safety managers, we met them all and they provided invaluable professional insight that married the concepts covered in class,” he said. “Our learning was very much experiential, as we would take class visits to sites and practice our tools from lessons to build and connect knowledge.”SaveSaveSaveSave

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Date posted: October 11, 2017 | Author: | Comments Off on Students learn workplace safety from Operating Staff

Categories: Centerpiece Faculty & Staff Students

Assistant Professor Brian McCormick, Department of Management, and his co-authors recently received the 2017 Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work-Family Research. Their article, “My family made me do it: A cross-domain, self-regulatory perspective on antecedents to abusive supervision,” was published in 2016 in the Academy of Management Journal.

Named in honor of Rosabeth Moss Kanter, who has been identified as the most influential contributor to modern literature on work and family, the Kanter Award is given for the best research paper published during the year. Articles are selected through a rigorous and multi-stage review process involving over 2,500 articles published in 65 leading English-language journals from around the world. More details about the award, finalists and selection process are at https://www.purdue.edu/hhs/hdfs/cff/initiatives/kanteraward/.
Date posted: October 11, 2017 | Author: | Comments Off on Brian McCormick receives Moss Kanter Award for Excellence

Categories: Accolades

NIU chemistry professor Narayan Hosmane has been awarded the Mahatma Gandhi Pravasi Samman award, which is given to non-resident natives of India for outstanding services, achievements and contributions for keeping the “Flag of India high.”

Hosmane received the award this fall during the Global Indian Summit at the House of Lords in London.

The award is given by the NRI Welfare Society of India, an organization established to strengthen bonds between India and non-resident Indians.

The latest honor is one of many bestowed upon the veteran NIU professor.

Hosmane’s awards also have included the prestigious Humboldt Research Award for senior scientists (in 2001 and 2007) from Germany’s Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the BUSA Award for Distinguished Achievements in Boron Science; the Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Distinguished Chair of Chemistry at the University of Hyderabad, India; the Gauss Professorship of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences, Germany; and election as a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.

Additionally, Hosmane has won numerous awards for teaching and research at NIU, including being named among the inaugural Board of Trustees professors.

Date posted: October 11, 2017 | Author: | Comments Off on Narayan Hosmane honored in London for outstanding achievements

Categories: Accolades

NIU’s annual STEMFest will once again welcome budding scientists and curious visitors of all ages. On Saturday, Oct. 21, the Midwest’s premier festival for celebrating science, technology, engineering and math will return to the NIU Convocation Center from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Many of the crowd’s favorite exhibits from previous years will be returning, including the hands-on laser lab and the newly updated bowling ball pendulum, which demonstrates conservation of energy. Pati Sievert, director of NIU STEM Outreach, is particularly looking forward to the annual Haunted Physics Lab and other STEM Exploration Labs. Sievert says, “I love the excitement and wonder that these engaging displays elicit in children.”

STEMFest will also debut some exciting new exhibits, including a crime-scene booth to introduce visitors to innovations in forensic science, which will be provided by this year’s largest sponsor, Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Adults and children of all ages will find something engaging and informative at STEMFest. “Many of the exhibits offer activities for multiple ages,” Sievert says. “While a child checks out the driver’s seat and controls of the formula one racer, his older sibling could be chatting with the NIU student-builders about opportunities at NIU.”

BLOCKfest®—an interactive building block experience for ages 8 months to 8 years—will capture the imagination of the youngest visitors. And the author and experts talks on the south lobby stage will attract older students, parents and grandparents.

Featured speakers include authors Nancy Cavanaugh (Elsie Mae Has Something to Say, This Journal Belongs to Ratchet) and Candace Fleming (Ben Franklin’s in My Bathroom, Giant Squid,), illustrator Eric Rohmann (Giant Squid, Time Flies), and NIU’s own Gillian King Cargile, author of the Stuffed Bunny Science Adventure Series. NIU Geography professor Walker Ashley will present a talk about tracking tornados. Additional speakers and a schedule of their talks will be available on the STEMfest website (www.stemfest.niu.edu).

STEMFest is a collaboration of NIU’s P-20 Center, STEM student groups and regional organizations, which come together to provide a unique experience to thousands of visitors each year. One such regional organization, QuarkNet, is a local collaboration of high schools, NIU and Fermilab, where high school students use particle detectors to track and research cosmic rays.

Hundreds of volunteers also pitch in to make STEMFest possible each year. Last year about 700 NIU student volunteers, including NIU senior Jasmine Carey, shared their scientific expertise with visitors. Carey says she volunteers at STEMFest year after year “because STEMfest shows that science, technology, engineering and math are not scary and these subjects can actually be fun. I always love the children’s faces when I tell them how their favorite exhibit works because of the STEM principles behind it.”

STEMFest also presents the opportunity for K-12 students to share their talents through the annual Science Video Competition and STEM Entrepreneurship Contest. The contest deadline is Tuesday, Oct.10, and the winners will be announced at STEMFest. Contest details are available.

“The overall feeling at STEMfest is one of wonder and excitement,” says Sievert. “The energy of the young people is contagious and I always see people of all ages truly engaged in the experience.”

The event is free and open to the public, and no advanced registration is required. Free parking will be available.

For more information, visit www.stemfest.niu.edu or contact stemoutreach@niu.edu or 815-753-1272.

 

Date posted: October 9, 2017 | Author: | Comments Off on The wonder and excitement of STEMFest

Categories: Centerpiece Community Faculty & Staff Students

Yanghee Kim

As a teacher in South Korea, Yanghee Kim gradually realized that her daily work in the classroom was robbing her of her joy of teaching.

Day in and day out, month after month and year after year, she recited the same information to her students, and her classroom time was so busy she didn’t have time to interact with the students in a meaningful way.

“I was lecturing at the kids all of the class hours, and thinking, ‘I could do better than this,’” Kim says. “I didn’t know if the students were listening to me or not.”

She turned to computers as a possible solution to this problem, designing software to do some of the recitation of classroom material.

“I have found that using a computer is so humanistic because I was able to talk to my students personally. Now I can walk around and observe,” she says. “I saw that a computer can change our classrooms, and since that time, I have become a technology advocate.”

Currently an associate professor of instructional technology and learning sciences at Utah State University, Kim has been named the NIU College of Education’s new LD and Ruth G. Morgridge Endowed Chair in Teacher Education and Preparation. She starts in January.

Founded in 1995, the Morgridge Chair emphasizes innovation and advancement in teacher education, particularly about the integration of technology in classroom practice.

“My responsibilities here at NIU are what I have dreamed about,” Kim says. “My research agenda is important, but I love to promote research collaboration between diverse research interests and to be a catalyst for collaborative education research, which should be, by nature, interdisciplinary.”Laurie Elish-Piper,

Laurie Elish-Piper, dean of the NIU College of Education, heralds Kim’s innovative, creative, forward-thinking approach.

“We’re thrilled to have Yanghee join us because of her research to understand how cutting-edge technologies can be used to make education equalized and inclusive,” Elish-Piper says.

“The Morgridge Endowed Chair position focuses on moving the field of teacher education forward, and we believe that Yanghee is uniquely positioned to leverage this opportunity to benefit not only NIU but our school district partners,” Elish-Piper adds. “Her work is extremely innovative and interdisciplinary, which will allow her to work collaboratively with students and faculty in the College of Education as well as around campus and with faculty and students at other universities.”

Kim came to the United States in 2000 to pursue graduate studies in instructional technology at Florida State University, where she earned a Ph.D. degree in educational psychology and learning systems and an M.S. degree in instructional systems design.

She joined the Utah State faculty in 2004, and in January of the same year, was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a project designing avatar-based instructional teaching tools. More recently, she was awarded a 2016 grant titled, “Inclusive Design for Engaging all Learners (IDEAL): Designing Technology for Cultural Brokering.” IDEAL explores another cutting-edge technology: the use of robots as teaching tools.

As principal investigator, that NSF grant comes with her to NIU until its conclusion in 2019. She will tap the NIU faculty to serve as co-principal investigators; she also is planning a related workshop on campus in January.

Her passion for the use of classroom technology is strong.

“These advanced technologies can help us address some needs we human instructors have,” Kim says. “These robots and computers never get tired of repeating information over and over. The robot is social bias-free. The robot can talk in English or in the children’s language – say, Spanish – and the children know it’s OK for them to not be fluent in another language. It places different groups in equal status.”

Children who pretend to understand to stop a teacher’s questions do not fool a robot, she says. Meanwhile, she adds, the robots can film facial expressions and record voices to provide teachers with video and audio evidence of how children are reacting to and absorbing the lessons.

Now that she is shifting gears, Kim is eager to work with NIU’s partner school districts and teachers to identify their needs and to drive research to address their needs.

She also expects to foster cross-disciplinary research across the NIU campus and to secure more external funding to support that scholarship, all of which will advance her goal of teaching each new generation.
“Education is about nurturing life. I was born in South Korea, and in Asian countries, they value education a lot,” she says, adding that she plans to build up the educational capacity in Illinois classrooms to nurture a new generation of students.

“In my teen years, I thought to myself, ‘Where do I want to commit my capacity?’ It was nurturing life,” she adds. “I vacillated between doctor and teacher. I decided that education is more about working people’s intellect – working people’s minds – and I thought that might be more important for them.”

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Date posted: October 9, 2017 | Author: | Comments Off on New Morgridge Chair visits College of Education

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