NIU Today

The General Assembly closed out its spring session Tuesday night by passing a budget for Fiscal Year 2012, but set aside issues related to pension reform and annuitant health insurance premium changes. Both of those items are expected to be the topic of continued discussion and debate over the summer and are scheduled to be taken up again this fall during the General Assembly’s veto session beginning Oct. 25.

Here is a recap of issues of importance to NIU faculty, staff and students:

FY2012 Budget – The higher education appropriations bill approved by the General Assembly was based on a version drawn up by the House of Representatives; it calls for a 1.15 percent base budget reduction in funding to Illinois public universities.

Cash Flow Crisis Compounded in FY12

As of June 1, 2011, the state owes NIU $42,819,271; with only four weeks remaining in the fiscal year, the state still owes NIU 42 percent of its appropriated operating funds.  In addition, the General Assembly extended the lapse payment period to Dec. 31 to allow the state more time to clear the $8 billion backlog in unpaid obligations.

The new fiscal year begins July 1, 2012 and our cash flow backlog will be compounded almost immediately as unpaid FY12 vouchers pile up in the Comptroller’s office. Our budgetary hole is much deeper on June 1, 2011 than it was one year ago in terms of funds the state still owes NIU as Fiscal Year 2011 concludes.

Pensions – Discussion of major changes to Illinois pension programs for current employees was shelved after SB512 was met with tremendous resistance from employees across the state.   However, proponents of the bill made it clear that this is not the end of the issue.

“We are absolutely committed to reforming Illinois’ public pension system for current employees,” said Speaker Mike Madigan and House Republican Leader Tom Cross in a joint statement. “It must be done to stabilize our systems and address long term financial issues for both the public employee pension systems and state government. We believe passage of legislation addressing this issue is essential to the state’s well being.”

The House leaders pledged hearings over the summer and another attempt at pension reform in the fall veto session.

Annuitant Health Care – A proposal that would have ended free health care for annuitants with 20 or more years of service in the state, was also temporarily shelved. The plan would have instituted a new system under which retirees would be required to pay a percentage of their health insurance costs. It would have established a sliding scale taking into account years of service, age at retirement and the size of the pension collected (as a measure of ability to pay.)  This is another issue that will continue to be discussed throughout the summer with potential action during Veto Session in October.

Capital Bill – Some last minute maneuvering in the Senate, which added $343 million to the amount proposed in the House version, will likely place this bill in limbo until later this fall. That could tie up funding for the next phase of work on the Cole-Stevens complex and planning for a new computer technology building.

The Illinois House Personnel and Pension Committee today recommended approval of an amended version of Senate Bill 512, which would dramatically change the way that the state handles employee pensions.

The committee voted 5-2, with one member voting “present,” to send the bill to the floor for debate. Sponsor of the bill, Rep. Tom Cross, provided a fact sheet summarizing the proposal.

The hearing featured testimony from union officials, university administrators and others stating their opposition to the bill on numerous grounds. Opponents included NIU Vice President for Human Resources Steve Cunningham. (His full remarks can be found here.)

“It is our recommendation that the committee carefully examine and weigh the likely effects that this legislation, if enacted, would have on human resource investments at Northern Illinois University, the Illinois system of public higher education, and related interests in economic development throughout the State of Illinois,” Cunningham said in submitted remarks. “Lifetimes of financial planning would be thrown into disarray, and the state’s ability to attract and retain high quality employees would be severely damaged. Ultimately, it could weaken the capacity of the Illinois system of public higher education in its significant role as an economic engine for the state.”

Cunningham and other opponents charged that many of the changes proposed in the bill would violate the Pension Protection Clause of the Illinois Constitution.

“The historical basis of the Constitutional Pension Protection Clause predicts exactly the type of situation that we find ourselves in today. Employees have relied upon the State’s representation to maintain a predictable and secure set of core pension benefits that serve as a replacement for the Social Security System. This is both an ethical and constitutional requirement,” he said.

Many objectors, including Cunningham, voiced misgivings about a new wrinkle in the plan that would allow the state to increase the contribution level of Tier 1 employees every three years, with no guarantee of a cap. As the plan is set up, Tier 1 – essentially the current guaranteed benefit plan – would require participants to contribute 15.3 percent, with the first potential increase in 2015.

The plan is expected to be unattractive enough that many participants would migrate to other options, retire or find employment elsewhere. That possibility led some to question how benefits for already retired Tier 1 participants can be sustained if the number of participants shrinks dramatically.

Throughout the hearing, lawmakers emphasized that the current system is unsustainable, saying that changes that will directly affect employees are necessary. Representatives from public employee unions pointed out repeatedly that employees have never missed a payment (while the state has repeatedly deferred its obligations), and have made concessions in the past including forgoing general salary increases and extending the number of years required for full medical coverage after retirement.

When asked for alternate ways to address the issue, the officials suggested that rather than implement SB512,  they would be open to revising the 1995 law that requires the state’s pension systems to be 90 percent funded by 2045, by either extending the timeline or lowering the percentage.

The union officials also vowed that if the plan is approved it will be challenged in the courts.

After brief discussion, the committee approved the bill. It will now be debated in the full legislature and could come up for a vote before the May 31 conclusion of the legislative session.

NIU Vice President of Human Resources is testifying this morning before the Personnel and Pension Committee regarding Senate Bill 512 which would significantly alter the way employee pensions are handled. Cunningham’s testimony, outlining our grave concern about these proposed changes, is below.

Personnel and Pensions Committee

Written Testimony of Steven D. Cunningham

Northern Illinois University

May 26, 2011

To the Chairman and Members of the Personnel and Pensions Committee: My name is Steve Cunningham, Vice President of Human Resources at Northern Illinois University and I appreciate the opportunity to offer this written testimony on behalf of President John Peters, Northern Illinois University, and the college and university employees and retirees that are participants in the State Universities Retirement System (SURS).

We wish first to acknowledge and recognize that we are faced with an unprecedented circumstance of a scale that is unparalleled in the history of our great State. We further understand that the General Assembly has worked diligently to fund pension obligations and that actions considered today are, in many respects, forced by circumstances set in motion many years ago.

However, we must express our grave concerns regarding the substantial changes to the pension code proposed in the amendments to Senate Bill 512. It is our recommendation that the committee carefully examine and weigh the likely affects that this legislation, if enacted, would have on human resource investments at Northern Illinois University, the Illinois system of public higher education, and related interests in economic development throughout the State of Illinois. Lifetimes of financial planning would be thrown into disarray and the State’s ability to attract and retain high quality employees would be severely damaged. Ultimately, it could weaken the capacity of the Illinois system of public higher education in its significant role as an economic engine for the state.

While the funding situation affects all of the public employee pension systems, my focus here is concerning the State universities pension system. The SURS represents an important sector of State government employment that extends throughout the Illinois public universities and community colleges. Illinois has made a significant investment in Human Capital to build and operate a state university system that has served the students, families, and citizens of the State of Illinois for more than 150 years. This sector competes and participates in national, regional, and statewide marketplaces across an exceptionally wide range of labor markets – from faculty and other professional personnel who maintain the academic, research, and student services enterprises – to the many other specialized and skilled staff personnel that contribute to the success of students educated on our campuses. Tens of thousands of students, families, communities, and businesses rely on the mission of NIU and the other State universities every year. This enterprise has served Illinois well, preparing many thousands of graduates to lead more productive lives, contributing significantly to the State economy.

We understand the difficult circumstances and challenges faced by this committee and the Illinois General Assembly with respect to funding pensions. Since 1967, when the State of Illinois assumed responsibility for employer pension payments, SURS participants have depended upon the state to be stewards of their retirement plan. For university employees, the normal costs (summation of annual benefits required under the retirement system) are known to be just average compared to comparable programs on a national basis, including Social Security^1,2. Furthermore, SURS participants have sacrificed the right to participate in Social Security during their university careers and the State has not been required to pay the 6.2 percent OASDI employer match to the Social Security Administration. The funding crisis today is the result of circumstances set into motion many years ago by decisions not to fund normal costs leading to massive unfunded liabilities – thus, the challenges we now face³.

We do not consider Senate Bill 512 to be a viable solution. I call your attention to three major areas of concern:

1. Retirement Security – Public Policy Implications: The Pension Protection Clause adopted in the 1970 Constitution was designed to assure future State employees, pension plan participants, and annuitants that they could plan their careers and retirement under a stable set of assumptions and circumstances. The historical basis of the Constitutional Pension Protection Clause predicts exactly the type of situation that we find ourselves in today⁴. Employees have relied upon the State’s representation to maintain a predictable and secure set of core pension benefits that serve as a replacement for the Social Security System. This is both an ethical and constitutional requirement. Under the proposed amendment, these assumptions are shattered and longer-term employees in the Tier 1 program have no means whatsoever of revising their long term plans financial assumptions, and career strategies. The retirement status of all such individuals is placed in great jeopardy. Furthermore, as we understand the amendment, it is apparent that the existing funding model, with predictable normal costs independent of the State’s unfunded liabilities, would now suddenly be destabilized and would soon disappear under the proposed terms of this statute. Under such a plan, the very livelihood of SURS participants is placed at risk. The forced choice will drive many to retire or move elsewhere as soon as possible, causing a severe loss of some of the most experienced and well established academic and professional personnel in the State system of higher education.
2. Mid-Career, Professionally Mobile, Human Resource Investments: Illinois is not immune from the market based national and global competition for the best and the brightest teachers, faculty, technicians, and managers. Higher Education already faces unprecedented challenges in retirement activity and this legislation will only do more harm and exacerbate already serious retirement, recruitment, and retention challenges. Given the proposed amendment, shorter-term mid-career personnel (generally more than 10 years from a planned retirement date) would likely seek other employment options. This cohort of personnel is a cornerstone of the developing human capital framework that supports the Illinois system of higher education. Many of these individuals are highly marketable, and it is almost certain, under the proposals contained in Senate Bill 512, that many of them would pursue opportunities elsewhere. This would place the human capital investments of our college and university system at great risk. The future of the academic and research enterprises developed throughout the Illinois system of higher education is reliant upon retaining and recruiting such personnel from the wide range of national and regional labor markets that sustain our institutions.
3. Pension Fund Status as a Function of State Government Fiscal Integrity: Assuming the probability of a massive forced migration away from the so-called Tier 1 fund, it is unclear how to sustain this system in the absence of a continuing stream of normal contributions from existing employees. Such contributions currently support a significant amount of the benefit funding requirements of this plan. The normal cost component can be predicted to escalate significantly as fewer participants are available to pay the continuing normal cost requirements. As the numbers of participants decline, the normal cost component would escalate significantly and the few remaining participants would have to pay those costs. It is hard to imagine a more precarious situation for current retirees and participants who have relied upon the SURS program. This represents well over 90 percent of current SURS participants whose future retirement benefits would soon become entirely funded by State resources under the Pension Code. Fund sources are hardly available to pay already existing unfunded liabilities. It is difficult to understand the public policy basis for risking destabilization of the consistent stream of contributions maintained by Tier 1 participants.

With these issues in mind, we recommend on behalf of Northern Illinois University, and the Illinois higher education community, that we take the time and opportunity to take a closer look at the longer-term systemic impact of this amendment. There is no denying the critical nature of our current fiscal situation. I am certain that higher education employees and institutions are prepared to contribute to a long-term solution. However, we should not take action now that is certain to make a bad situation worse, through forced choices or unconstitutional reductions in benefits on the very people we need as employees and SURS participants to preserve and enhance our economic viability. In whatever approach is taken, we urge that the committee and the General Assembly will be responsive to and reflect on:

• The constitutional and ethical pension plan commitments that so many employees have counted on for their earned retirements.
• The potential impact on students pursuing higher education as an avenue to success when so many dynamic faculty and staff will not only seriously consider opting out of pension programs, but may indeed choose to leave Illinois or never consider this State for employment.
• The possibility of a severe disruption to the continuity of Tier 1 employee contributions and the potential for critically detrimental effects on funding remaining available for those already retired or forced to remain in Tier 1 simply because of the years already invested.

We appreciate the opportunity to submit this testimony and look forward to working with you toward a practical solution of this most critical matter. ¹ Social Security Administration (2010). Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance 2010. Available at: http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2010/tr10.pdf (last visited May 18, 2011) ² State Universities Retirement System Available at: http://www.surs.org ³ Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability. Monthly Briefing (May 2010) Available at:http://www.ilga.gov/commission/cgfa2006/Upload/0510revenue.pdf (last visited May 18, 2011) ⁴ Madiar, Eric M. (2011) Is Welching On Public Pension Promises An Option for Illinois? An Analysis of Article XIII, Section 5 of the Illinois Constitution. Available at: http://www.illinoissenatedemocrats.com/images/pensions/D/Pension%20Clause%20Article%20Final.pdf (last visited May 18, 2011)

An announcement regarding a new deadline for the selection of benefits could be coming soon, following a decision released Thursday by the Illinois Attorney General’s office.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan released a decision indicating that a legislative oversight panel does not have the authority to block individual health insurance contracts for state employees.

The General Assembly’s bipartisan Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability sought the opinion because it was unclear if the commission could simply vote to reject the new health contracts negotiated by the Department of Healthcare and Family Services.

Those new contracts, with Blue Cross Blue Shield, will likely replace the current offerings from Health Alliance and Humana. The Quality Care and HMO Illinois options of past years will be available once again.

“This does not signal the end of the issue. Health Alliance still has some appeals pending, but this may offer some insight into what direction the decision may go,” said Steve Cunningham, vice president for Administration and Human Resource Services at NIU. “It might be a good time for employees to begin analyzing their options more closely and learn which networks include their existing health care providers.”

The deadline for the Benefits Choice, which traditionally has been May 31, has been extended until this question is completely resolved. No new deadline date has been announced yet.

For up-to-date news, monitor the Human Resource Services blog and Central Management Services homepage.

For most people, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro would be the highlight of their summer, or maybe even their life. For NIU engineering student Alan Hurt, it is just a start.

NIU engineering student Alan Hurt is traveling in Africa this summer to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and conduct research.

Just hours after completing his last final exam of the semester, Hurt boarded a plane bound for Africa, carrying only a single rucksack containing a few clothes, some personal items and a laptop computer.

Those meager supplies, he hopes, will be enough to get him through an arduous three-month journey with an itinerary that includes:

• climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro by the end of May, as a fundraiser for a school in Kenya;
• crisscrossing the African continent conducting research on various fuels used to fire cook stoves;
• meeting up with fellow members of the NIU chapter of Engineers Without Borders to plan a December project to build a solar-powered cook stove at a school in Tanzania.

While others shake their heads in wonder over his ambitious summer plans, Hurt just shrugs his shoulders.

“My parents raised me to be altruistic,” says the 26-year-old who is double majoring in mechanical engineering and industrial engineering. “They instilled in me certain morals and virtues and a desire to do good in life any way that I can.”

His decision to apply his energies in Africa is due, in part, to his relationship with Andrew Otieno, a professor in NIU’s College of Engineering and Engineering Technology, where Hurt enrolled two years ago. Otieno advises NIU’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders (for which Hurt serves as president) and is involved in several charitable undertakings in his home country of Kenya and elsewhere in Africa.

“Coming to NIU was one of the best decisions I have ever made,” Hurt says. “Dr. Otieno has been a huge inspiration. Meeting him changed my life because he opened to me an avenue that allows me to mesh my engineering expertise with my passion for improving the lives of others.”

This is Hurt’s fourth trip to Africa. His first was in 2007 when he volunteered at a school that serves children who literally live in and on trash dumps. That experience helped inspire his decision to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, as a fundraiser for education in Africa.

That leg of the odyssey began Saturday, May 14, with his arrival in Nairobi.

After a couple of days spent recovering from his trip, and visiting friends, he traveled to Moshi, Tanzania for the climb. There he hopes to hire his own team of five or six porters and cooks to support a solo climb (the economics of the country make this an affordable option). Failing that, he will attach himself to one of the numerous tour groups that tackle the mountain each year.

His meager rucksack does not contain clothing suitable for the climb, which will take place during the rainy season. Instead, he plans to secure gear for the trip at the base of the mountain where locals sell and rent, for pennies on the dollar, gear discarded by previous climbers.

That “make-it-up-as-I-go-along” approach is typical of his planning for the trip, as he knows the region is so unpredictable that the best-laid plans typical go awry.

The climb up the 19,023-foot mountain (and back down) should take about eight days. While he is a lifelong Midwesterner and unaccustomed to heights, Hurt is optimistic that he can complete the trek – even though he has friends who have been felled by altitude sickness just 200 yards from the summit.

For him, reaching the top of the mountain is less important than raising money to benefit schoolchildren. He has been soliciting donations from friends and relatives, and has established an online account where donations can be made securely through the Sango Association. All proceeds will go directly to the school he has designated.

After the climb, Hurt will embark on a cross-continent journey that will take him to schools in more than a dozen African nations. His goal is to gather data regarding cooking methods at the schools in hopes of finding a cleaner cheaper fuel that the wood or petroleum-based products that most now use.

“Most of these schools, many of the children attend less because of the opportunity to learn, and more because they are guaranteed a meal. At the school where I helped teach in 2007, cooking fuel was the second highest operational cost,” Hurt says.

The data collection will be part of an independent study project that Hurt is conducting under the guidance of Otieno and another NIU engineering professor, Nicholas Pohlman. He has high hopes for a system he plans to view in Uganda that relies upon a biogas derived from readily available water hyacinth.

He hopes that he can learn enough about the system that when he returns he can devise a way to manufacture the system simply and cheaply. In fact, that quest will be the centerpiece of a class in social entrepreneurism that he will take through the NIU College of Business this fall. If the project is judged the most viable developed in the class, he and teammates will receive seed money to pursue creation of a company to build and sell the device in Third World countries.

The data collection will be an adventure in and of itself. He has a few phone numbers and e-mail addresses, but by and large he will travel wherever he hears that an interesting innovation exists. He will rely primarily on buses and trains to get him where he needs to be, and looks forward to eating the same simple food that locals eat.

“I developed some ‘street smarts’ about traveling on my earlier trips to Africa, and I will be carrying little of value, so I am not too concerned about running into trouble along the way,” he says.

In early August, he will meet up with classmates in Musoma, Tanzania, to plan the construction of a fuel-efficient cooking system or Nyegina Secondary School. Current plans are call for a solar-powered device, but Hurt hopes that his research might turn up even better options.

After that, he will spend about a week relaxing and teaching before catching an Aug. 19 flight back to Chicago. He will arrive just in time for the start of fall classes.

Hurt has established a blog, Planes, Trains and Africa, where he will post occasional updates about his journey.

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by Joe King

After much discussion, it appears that lawmakers will this week take up in earnest the issue of changes to the pension system for state employees.

Currently, it appears that the language in HB149 is the strategy that lawmakers are looking to as they consider the issue.

A quick summary of the three-tiered system under consideration can be found on the State Pension and Budget Update website. There you also will find links to more information, including an analysis of the bill provided by Institute of Government Public Affairs at the University of Illinois.

This is likely to be a fast-moving issue in the days ahead. Check back frequently for updates.

The NIU College of Business added to its list of accolades this week with the release of more detailed information from the Bloomberg Businessweek rankings of business schools.

Earlier this year, Bloomberg released the overall results, with NIU placing at number 84 out of more than 600 eligible AACSB-certified business schools.

This week a more detailed analysis of the findings that delved into specialty areas found NIU ranked third for ethics education and 19th in sustainability.

“Both of these rankings are tremendous honors for the college,” said NIU College of Business Dean Denise Schoenbachler. “They place us amongst the leaders in two fields that are increasingly recognized as important within the business community. Thanks and congratulations go out to our entire ethics team and to all those who have worked diligently to build up our offerings related to sustainability.”

The NIU College of Business is widely recognized as an innovator in the teaching of ethics based on the success of its BELIEF initiative. The college placed second in ethics education rankings in last year’s survey.

The specialty rankings were based upon surveys of 85,000 students at more than 100 top B-schools. They were asked them to rate their programs’ performance in 14 academic disciplines, ranging from calculus and ethics to marketing and sustainability.

NIU President John G. Peters

NIU President John G. Peters today released a letter to Illinois media stating his continued opposition to Illinois House Bill 148, which would permit Illinoisans, age 21 and older, to carry concealed weapons.

“Supporters of this bill argue that it will make it easier for responsible owners of registered weapons to protect themselves. I know from bitter experience, however, that any such law is more likely to put all of us at greater risk from irresponsible, under-trained or inexperienced gun owners,” he said in the statement.

Peters and university presidents and chancellors from around the state have been monitoring this issue closely for several months. In early April, they sent a letter to every Illinois legislator urging that any legislation include an exemption that would essentially ban carrying weapons anywhere on a college or university campus in Illinois.

Earlier this week, a general exemption was added to the legislation. However, upon detailed review, Peters said that he still does not support the legislation as written due to loopholes that he believes seriously undermine the exemption.

“The exemption banning guns from college and university campuses must be comprehensive and complete,” Peters said. “As it stands, House Bill 148 does little or nothing to make our campuses or our communities safer. I am urging our lawmakers to reject this bill.”

Engineering students from NIU have rolled out their design for a simple vehicle designed to improve the lives of people in some of the most remote and rugged areas of the world.

The vehicle was unveiled April 16 at the 11th Annual Basic Utility Vehicle Competition, hosted by the Institute for Affordable Transportation in Indianapolis. The NIU team was one of 17 from universities around the country competing to show off vehicles that IAT hopes will become the 21st century version of the Ford Model-T in rural villages.

Vehicles entered in the contest must be flexible (capable of comfortably transporting people or up to 1,200 pounds of cargo); tough and agile (able to negotiate rutted dirt, roads, muddy roads or no roads at all); and fuel efficient (able to coax at least 30 miles per gallon out of its 10 horse power engine). The design must utilize basic automotive parts readily available in third world countries, have 95 percent fewer parts than the average car and cannot cost more than $3,300 to build.

The NIU team met all of those criteria, even managing to come in well under budget. The vehicle placed eighth overall and third out of five schools in the Highly Competitive division.

Members of the team were Justin Chatroop, Andrew Paul, Mike Cortese and Chris Roberts. They were advised by professor Andrew Otieno. The students built the vehicle to fulfill their Senior Design Project requirement. The project was funded, in part, by the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology and the Department of Technology.

While some components of the vehicle (the engine, transmission, etc.) were donated or scavenged, much of the vehicle was designed and fabricated from the ground up and the project provided a substantial engineering challenge, Otieno says.

While the team members did not snag the top spot (last accomplished by NIU in 2007), they already have found a home for their vehicle. It will be donated to a Catholic hospital in Kenya and used to transport medical personnel into the bush and patients back to the hospital, Otieno says.

NIU accountancy major Jonathan Strevell (right) "arrests" graduate student Gregory Broughton as part of a role-playing project conducted in the NIU College of Business by the Criminal Investigations arm of the IRS.

Few students studying in Northern Illinois University’s nationally acclaimed Department of Accountancy ever considered that their jobs might include arresting drug dealers, conducting undercover interviews with bookies or raiding crooked tax preparers.

However, they learned that those things are all in a day’s work for accountants who work as criminal investigators for the Internal Revenue Service.

Fifteen IRS special agents gave students a taste of that life Friday, April 8, when the Adrian Project returned to the NIU College of Business for the second consecutive year.

As the investigative arm of the IRS, special agents are frequently pulled into cases by other law enforcement agencies to sift through financial records to help bring down criminals. It is a little-known about aspect of the agency’s duties.

“We used to go out recruiting agents at college job fairs, but the pamphlets we handed out didn’t really capture what we do,” says Walter Pauli, a supervisory special agent who co-created the program about a decade ago.

To correct that, he and his partner devised a day-long role playing exercise that gives students the opportunity to conduct mock drug raids, participate in undercover interviews, dig through trash for incriminating documents and to see that the accounting skills they learn in the classroom can be used to fight crime. The IRS uses the program as a recruiting tool at about a half dozen universities each year.

“It’s an opportunity for us to show students what we do, things we are usually very secretive about,” says Supervisory Special Agent Walter Olgy. “We want them to see that just because you have an accounting degree doesn’t mean you have to sit behind a calculator and a computer all day.”

The 40-plus students participating in the NIU event all were enrolled in (or had completed) a course on forensic accounting — a specialty area that focuses on using accounting techniques to solve crimes or support litigation. Students choosing that career path might end up working not just for the IRS or FBI, but law firms that need to confirm the validity of asset claims in divorces and other matters.

“Most students think that being an accountant means being a bean counter, but forensic accounting can be sexy and exciting,” says professor Chih-Chen Lee, who teaches the subject to about 100 students a year at NIU.

Judging by the enthusiastic participation of students throughout the day, that message got through loud and clear.

The hallways of the college’s home, Barsema Hall, were filled with groups of students wearing bulletproof vests and carrying two-way radios and red, rubber replicas of sidearms as they conducted surveillance, and there was no missing when “arrests” were made with students barking at various role players to get their hands in the air.

The simulated shooting range – essentially a life-size, interactive  video game – was also a hit.

Of course, students also got a taste of the more technical aspects of the job, too, as they pored over financial documents looking for irregularities – usually with success.

“My students were great, they found what they were supposed to fine,” says Special Agent Martha Grijalva, who earned her undergraduate accounting degree from NIU in 2002 (and a master’s degree in 2004) before joining the IRS in 2005.

That came as no surprise to Olguy, who said the IRS carefully selects schools for the Adrian Project with an eye toward attracting quality candidates.

“NIU Accountancy graduates are well respected,” he says, “not just throughout the Midwest, but across the nation.”

Related

• Adrian Project at NIU featured on WGN-TV Chicago

Engineering students from Northern Illinois University earlier this month rolled out their design for a simple vehicle designed to improve the lives of people in some of the most remote and rugged areas of the world.

The vehicle was unveiled Saturday, April 16, at the 11th Annual Basic Utility Vehicle Competition hosted by the Institute for Affordable Transportation in Indianapolis. The NIU team was one of 17 from universities around the country competing to show off vehicles that IAT hopes will become the 21st century version of the Ford Model-T for rural villages across the village.

Vehicles entered in the contest must be flexible (capable of comfortably transporting people or up to 1,200 pounds of cargo); tough and agile (able to negotiate rutted dirt, roads, muddy roads or no roads at all) and fuel-efficient (able to coax at least 30 miles per gallon out of its 10 horse power engine). The design must utilize basic automotive parts readily available in third world countries, have 95 percent fewer parts than the average car and cannot cost more than $3,300 to build.

The NIU team met all of those criteria, and managed to come in well under budget. The vehicle placed eighth overall (out of 14) and third out of five schools in the Highly Competitive division.

Members of the team were Justin Chatroop (a Mechanical Engineering major), Andrew Paul, Mike Cortese and Chris Roberts (all three majoring in Manufacturing Engineering). They were advised by Professor Andrew Otieno.

The students built the vehicle to fulfill their Senior Design Project requirement. The project was funded in part by the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology and the Department of Technology.

While some components of the vehicle (the engine, transmission, etc.) were donated or scavenged, much of the vehicle was designed and fabricated from the ground up and the project provided a substantial engineering challenge, Otieno said.

While the team members did not snag the top spot (last accomplished by NIU in 2007), they already have found a home for their vehicle. It will be donated to a Catholic hospital in Kenya for transport of medical personnel into the bush and patients back to the hospital, Otieno said.

Abhijit Gupta

Abhijit Gupta, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering in NIU’s College of Engineering and Engineering Technology, will receive the Monroe Seligman Award from the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology.

The award recognizes Gupta’s contributions to the institute in the area of vibration testing as a tutorial instructor, mentor to many engineers and an ambassador of the institute at NIU.

Founded in 1953, IEST is a multi disciplinary, international society in the areas of contamination control in electronics manufacturing and pharmaceutical processes; design, test and evaluation of commercial and military equipment; and product reliability issues associated with commercial and military systems.

A formal announcement of the award will be made Wednesday, May 4, as part of the Membership Meeting and Awards Luncheon at the ESTECH 2011 conference in Schaumburg.