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They haven’t put NIU’s new 28-foot-long, 2,200-pound robotic submarine in the water yet, but geologists Ross Powell and Reed Scherer have already made a big splash.

The submarine, which will be used to explore melting near the base of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, was a big hit as it was unveiled in mid-December at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco, attended by nearly 20,000 scientists, students and members of the media.

Reed Scherer (left) and Ross Powell in front of the newly built robotic submarine during its San Francisco unveiling.

Reed Scherer (left) and Ross Powell in front of the newly built robotic submarine during its San Francisco unveiling.

The San Francisco Chronicle featured the submarine and the NIU scientists on the newspaper’s Dec. 20 front page. Other media outlets picking up on the story included Discovery News, Live Science, Earth Magazine online and msnbc.com.

“The NIU Department of Geology and Environmental Geosciences was prominently represented at the conference,” said Powell, an NIU Board of Trustees Professor.

“The scientific community and the media seem to be very excited about the potential of our project,” he said. “The submarine, or robotically operated vehicle (ROV), will allow us to retrieve information that is critical to glacial and climate modelers who are trying to project potential future rises in global sea levels due to global warming.”

DOER Marine, a robotics engineering firm located in the San Francisco Bay area, spent nearly three years building the unmanned yellow submarine for NIU.

It is equipped with five cameras, a water sampler, a sediment corer, a Doppler current meter, more than two dozen sensors, a laser-beam for measuring objects, a robotic arm with “fingers” for gathering samples, a device for imaging and mapping the seafloor surface, an acoustic sounder for profiling sub-seafloor sediment and numerous other instruments.

A rendering of the robotic submarine in flight mode. (Courtesy of DOER Marine)

A rendering of the robotic submarine in flight mode. (Courtesy of DOER Marine)

Powell, Scherer and a team of researchers from other institutions will drill through more than a half mile of ice and lower the submarine — which can collapse to a width of just 22 inches in diameter — through a 30-inch-wide ice borehole into the ocean water beneath the Ross Ice Shelf adjacent to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. About two miles of cable will tether the submarine to a control center on the ice, where images and data will be collected.

“Once under the ice, the robotic submarine undergoes a Transformer-like change in its shape as it prepares for ‘flight mode’ in the seawater,” said Scherer, an NIU Presidential Research Professor. “It’s an impressive piece of technology that should produce some amazing science.”

The robotic submarine will allow scientists for the first time ever to observe melting and other conditions at the interface between seawater and the base of the glacial ice. Scientists also will use the submarine to investigate the sea floor and layers of sediment beneath.

The National Science Foundation-supported project is scheduled for late 2013, but the submarine will be tested in late March at Lake Tahoe and at the end of 2011 near McMurdo Station, the United States’ main base in Antarctica.

The dive at Lake Tahoe, one of the world’s deepest freshwater lakes, is designed to test the extensive instrumentation on the submarine and gather information on fault lines beneath the lake.

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NIU and DOER Marine unveil robotic submarine

Date posted: January 4, 2011 | Author: | Comments Off on Robotic submarine makes media splash

Categories: Centerpiece Faculty & Staff Global Liberal Arts and Sciences Research Science and Technology

Northern Illinois University and DOER Marine today unveiled a new 28-foot long, cigar-shaped robotic submarine to be used in exploration beneath the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

Bristling with high-tech instrumentation, the submarine is among the exhibits at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco this week during the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting. The exhibit continues through Friday, Dec. 17.

“This one-of-a kind ROV (remotely operated vehicle), built by DOER Marine especially for NIU, is truly a feat of ingenuity, engineering and technology,” said Ross Powell, an NIU Board of Trustees Professor of geology.

[jwplayer config=”NIU Default” mediaid=”24165″]“The entire project will be groundbreaking in several ways,” Powell said. “We have developed new technology and new instrumentation to explore parts of our planet that have never been seen before and to collect unique scientific data that are aimed at helping plan for humanity’s future as the earth’s climate changes.”

Powell and NIU Presidential Research Professor of Geology Reed Scherer will discuss the submarine project during a workshop for the media at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 15, in Room 3000, Level 3, of the Moscone Convention Center West.

The 2,200-pound submarine is equipped with five cameras, a water sampler, a sediment corer, a Doppler current meter, more than two dozen sensors, a laser-beam for measuring objects, a robotic arm with “fingers” for gathering samples, a device for imaging and mapping the seafloor surface, an acoustic sounder for profiling sub-seafloor sediment and numerous other instruments.

Powell, Scherer and scientists from other institutions will use the remotely operated submarine to investigate melting near the base of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS).

The researchers intend to drill through more than a half mile of ice and lower the submarine—which can collapse to a width of just 22 inches in diameter—through a 30-inch-wide ice borehole into the ocean water beneath the Ross Ice Shelf adjacent to the WAIS. About two miles of cable will tether the submarine to a control center on the ice, where images and data will be collected.

The robotic submarine in flight mode. Graphic credit: DOER Marine

The robotic submarine will allow scientists for the first time ever to observe melting and other conditions at the interface between seawater and the base of the glacial ice. Scientists also will use the submarine to investigate the sea floor and layers of sediment beneath. The project is scheduled for late 2013, but the submarine will be tested this coming March at Lake Tahoe and at the end of 2011 near McMurdo Station, the United States’ main base in Antarctica.

“The submarine has an array of high-definition and still cameras, and has the ability to retrieve geologic cores,” Scherer said. “But what makes the submarine really special—and the reason it’s so large—is the incorporation of equipment that will provide geophysical images of the structure of sediments beneath the seabed. It’s analogous to taking an X-ray to find out what’s beneath the sediment surface.

“This is absolutely the first project of its kind,” Scherer added. “Ross Powell came up with the idea of using a robotic submarine, and we first proposed a project like this 10 years ago. It has tremendous potential. Up to now, all we know about conditions at the base of the ice shelf is from theory and remote data from surface instruments. The submarine will provide scientists with images of the environment and physical, chemical and biological measurements of the ice, water and sediment conditions.”

DOER Marine, a robotics engineering firm located in the San Francisco Bay area, spent nearly three years building the submarine.

“We’ve built some wild things before, but to pull all these things together into this one big vehicle is pretty fantastic,” DOER President Liz Taylor said. “The vehicle must fold up compactly to get down through the borehole, yet when it is released into open water the submarine goes through an elegant exercise to transform itself into ‘flight mode.’ This is really a unique feature.

“We wanted to pack as much into the submarine as we could, so we can retrieve as much data per hour of operational time as possible,” she added. “If you’re going through all that time and trouble, you want to make sure whatever you’re putting down there is a data pig.”

[jwplayer config=”NIU Default” mediaid=”24161″]The information that will be gathered is critical to glacial and climate modelers trying to project potential future rises in global sea levels due to global warming. Substantial melting at the base of the ice shelf, which floats atop seawater, and the ice sheet, which is grounded on land, would lead to a more rapid sea-level rise.

The National Science Foundation has already awarded $10 million in support of scientists at nine U.S. institutions involved in the Antarctic project. That figure includes $2.5 million awarded to Powell for his lead role in the project. The funds were generated through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or federal economic stimulus.

The University of California at Santa Cruz and Montana State University are also lead institutions in the 5-year Antarctic program, known as WISSARD, for Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling. The project will include a drilling investigation of Subglacial Lake Whillans—although the submarine is not involved in that aspect of the research. The interior lake is hidden beneath a thick layer of relatively fast-moving, grounded WAIS ice and might host a complex community of microbial life.

In addition to NSF, Powell and NIU colleagues previously received funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for design and construction of the robotic submarine. Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, based in San Francisco, contributed $1.3 million in funding for the robotic submarine’s instrumentation and testing.

Stefan Vogel, a former researcher at NIU, significantly contributed to technical development of instrumentation for sub-ice exploration. NIU undergraduates and graduate students are expected to participate in the Lake Tahoe test dives, as well as in each of three research field seasons in the Antarctic.

The dive at Lake Tahoe, one of the world’s deepest freshwater lakes, is designed to test the extensive instrumentation on the submarine and gather information on fault lines beneath the lake.

The Alfred E. Alquist Seismic Safety Commission is providing $50,000 in funding to retrieve fault-line images and data, Powell said. Small to moderate earthquakes are common in the Lake Tahoe region, and geologists have found evidence that a powerful quake thousands of years ago triggered a tsunami in the lake.

by Tom Parisi

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Date posted: December 14, 2010 | Author: | Comments Off on NIU and DOER Marine unveil robotic submarine that will explore beneath Antarctic ice shelf

Categories: Faculty & Staff Global Latest News Liberal Arts and Sciences Research Science and Technology

Logos of Elect Her, Running Start and Women's Campaign ForumNorthern Illinois University has been selected as one of 11 colleges from across the nation and Jamaica that will host Elect Her – Campus Women Win in 2011, a unique campus-based program that teaches women how to run for campus-based elective office.

The program, a collaboration between the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and Running Start, will return to its nine original program sites and will debut at 11 new campuses in 2011. The expansion enables Elect Her – Campus Women Win to reach nearly every region in the nation, from Duke University in the South to the University of Wyoming in the West.

Currently, women hold just 17 percent of the seats in Congress and 24 percent of the seats in state legislatures. Elect Her – Campus Women Win is training a whole new generation of college women for running for office later in life.

“We are so honored to have been selected as one of the Elect Her sites for 2011,” said Jill Dunlap, director of the NIU Women’s Resource Center. “NIU has only had two female Student Association presidents in its history, so this is a program that we believe can have a big impact on the future of the Student Association at NIU.” 

Since 2007, AAUW and Running Start have collaborated to encourage college women to run for student government. Building on those successes, the organizations developed and initiated the Elect Her – Campus Women Win training program last year, and the effort is already showing results for young women. From the nine campus sites in 2010, participant evaluations show practically double the number of students planning to run for student government and planning to run for political office post-college.

The Elect Her – Campus Women Win Training is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 5, in the Regency Room at the Holmes Student Center. For questions about NIU’s training session, contact Dunlap at (815) 753-9613 or jdunlap@niu.edu.

Date posted: November 29, 2010 | Author: | Comments Off on NIU will host ‘Elect Her’ training in 2011

Categories: Campus Highlights Did You Know? Events Faculty & Staff On Campus Students

NIU professor and historian Nancy M. Wingfield, selected  for a Fulbright Fellowship by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, is spending this fall semester in Ukraine researching humankind’s oldest profession: prostitution.

Nancy M. Wingfield

Nancy M. Wingfield

Wingfield is currently hosted by Chernivtsi National University in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, where she is completing research on a book-length manuscript on prostitution in late imperial Austria.

“I’ve been lucky to have received a fair amount of outside support for this project,” Wingfield says. “I’ve had two Fulbrights, one for the Czech Republic, and the one I’m on now. Last summer I had an IREX (International Research and Exchanges grant) for another part of Ukraine.”

This research-intensive project has taken Wingfield to some 20 archives and libraries in three countries where she is studying the regulation of prostitution. This will allow her to analyze the social, cultural and gender relations of the region. Wingfield’s research applies to two of her fields of study: modern Europe (Habsburg Central Europe) and gender and sexuality.

Studying the regulation of prostitution at the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries allows Wingfield to focus on the issue of gender relations during this time period.

“I am using the very detailed records of the city police on prostitution in what was then called Chernowitz, the capital of Bukowina, one of the easternmost and poorest provinces of the Habsburg Monarchy,” Wingfield says. “Although there are some documents from the prewar period, many of them are from the last two years of the First World War. They address both regulated and clandestine prostitutes. Much of the material is concerned with tracking venereal disease since the Habsburg military was concerned with the high level of VD among the Austro-Hungarian troops.”

While in Ukraine, Wingfield has spoken at the Lviv Center for Urban History of East Central Europe on trafficking women in late imperial Austria from the perspective of the eastern provinces. She is scheduled to make a presentation on a similar topic to the history department of Chernivtsi National University.

Wingfield is currently teaching “History of Gender and Sexuality” to fourth-year college students at her host college. She will return this spring to NIU, where she’ll teach the same course as well as a graduate research course on gender.

Date posted: November 29, 2010 | Author: | Comments Off on Nancy Wingfield spending fall semester studying in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, on Fulbright Fellowship

Categories: Awards Centerpiece Faculty & Staff Global Liberal Arts and Sciences

Photo of people working at computersOver the last decade or so, the World Wide Web has created a seismic shift in one of the cornerstones of education: reading.

Or, more precisely, how we understand what we’re reading.

In this new age of information, it’s no longer enough to comprehend a single text, NIU researchers say. The ease of Internet access to information such as advertisements, blogs, press releases, wikis, newspapers and encyclopedias makes it imperative that readers also be equipped to analyze multiple perspectives and evaluate source reliability.

“The types of reading situations required of students in the 21st century have changed, and we need to create interventions to help students better understand what they read,” says NIU psychology professor Anne Britt.

“Students are bombarded by a variety of online information that is unfiltered by traditional sources such as librarians and publishers,” Britt says. “More than ever, they have to evaluate the quality of the information on their own.”

Anne Britt, Joseph Magliano and Brad Pillow

Anne Britt, Joseph Magliano and Brad Pillow

With a new grant award of $2.4 million from the U.S. Department of Education, Britt and NIU Department of Psychology colleagues Joseph Magliano and Brad Pillow are now working to better understand how students filter the information glut.

The NIU researchers are members of a multi-institution team that in total received $19 million from the U.S. Department of Education for a five-year project led by Susan R. Goldman of the University of Illinois at Chicago. In addition to basic research on how students process information, the team will develop and test classroom- and web-based interventions to improve “reading for understanding” at the middle-school and high-school levels.

“We’ve been doing this type of research at NIU for awhile,” says Britt, who specializes in the study of how readers form arguments when presented with conflicting information and multiple perspectives.

She says past NIU studies have underscored the difference between reading comprehension and reading for understanding. The studies, for example, found that when given multiple sources to produce an essay, some students mistakenly support their arguments with material from unreliable sources, including from fictional novels.

“It’s not enough to comprehend a single text,” Britt says. “Students must also be able to identify the reliability and veracity of information.”

That requires another layer of critical-thinking skills.

“It involves reflecting on a whole set of factors associated with text, including who wrote it and why, and how the material is relevant to the reader’s goals,” says Magliano, whose area of research expertise focuses on how people understand what they read and watch.

“The web has been a real game changer,” Magliano says. “The general consensus is that reading comprehension is more important than ever, but the critical skill sets now required for full comprehension typically have not been taught in school.”

The research collaboration is one of six multi-institutional teams working collaboratively on a major Reading for Understanding Research Initiative funded by the Institute for Educational Sciences (IES) in the U.S. Department of Education.

Overall, the IES Network represents a $100 million investment aimed at improving reading skills. The effort comes in response to data from national assessments and employers indicating that many high school and college graduates lack basic literacy skills.

Keith Millis and Katja Wiemer

Keith Millis and Katja Wiemer

NIU psychology professors Keith Millis and Katja Wiemer also are receiving $200,000 in funding for their efforts on another project team headed up by Educational Testing Services. Their work will focus on assessing the interventions for K-12 students.

“We are trying to bring assessment up to the 21st century,” Millis says. “The exciting thing about this is that, unlike the assessments from yesterday, tests nowadays can be delivered on the computer using cutting-edge technologies.”

More than a dozen student researchers also will assist in the NIU research projects.

by Tom Parisi

Date posted: November 22, 2010 | Author: | Comments Off on Too much information?

Categories: Communiversity Engagement Faculty & Staff Latest News Liberal Arts and Sciences Research

NIU New Music Ensemble posterThe Friends of NIU Libraries and the NIU School of Music invite the public to attend a free New Music Ensemble concert and pre-concert lecture beginning at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 29, in the Music Building’s Boutell Memorial Concert Hall.

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Shulamit Ran of the University of Chicago, David M. Gordon of Wheaton College and Gregory Beyer of the NIU School of Music will present the pre-concert discussion, moderated by NIU School of Music librarian Michael Duffy.

The New Music Ensemble concert will begin at 8 p.m. and feature the music of Ran and Gordon.

The New Music Ensemble is a performance group dedicated to groundbreaking music of the 20th century and the emerging musical voices of the 21st century.

For more information on the lecture and concert, call (815) 753-8091 or (815) 753-1551.

Date posted: November 16, 2010 | Author: | Comments Off on Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Shulamit Ran will visit NIU for New Music Ensemble concert

Categories: Arts Centerpiece Communiversity Events Faculty & Staff Music Students Visual and Performing Arts

The parties were gathered Tuesday morning in the Lincoln Room at the Holmes Student Center: Japan, Micronesia, the United Nations, the World Wildlife Fund and the U.S. Department of State. Their task: to resolve a mounting depletion of Pacific fish population by getting everyone at the table to agree to the same plan of action to deal with the crisis.

This situation, a real-life crisis as global fish supplies shrink and conflicts erupt, this time was a simulation to teach 28 high schoolers and adult leaders from six Southeast Asian countries the basic building blocks of diplomacy.

Southeast Asia Youth Leadership Program

Southeast Asia Youth Leadership Program (SEAYLP) students Kyle Wei Ren Chan of Malaysia and Willy Wei Li Kong of Brunei confer on their position paper.

The visiting teenagers from Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam have been at NIU since Oct. 27, learning cooperative leadership skills as participants in the Southeast Asia Youth Leadership Program (SEAYLP)  run by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS).

In its second year, the three-week program, which is funded by the U.S. Department of State and is run in spring and fall, is designed around two themes: the leadership of Abraham Lincoln and river ecology.

So far, guided by an intrepid group of CSEAS graduate students, the group has seen how non-governmental organizations work, met with their teenage counterparts at the Illinois Math and Science Academy for a day, learned how to safely test water for simple contaminants, and worked on creating community action plans and how to use the spoken and written word effectively.

Nearly all of these skills were being put to the test in Tuesday’s practice for the diplomacy simulation, which will culminate in a presentation in front of real diplomatic personnel Thursday, Nov. 18, at the State Department in Washington, D.C. 

Anthropology graduate student Shahin Aftabizadeh has been in charge of the project, using his own background in refugee work on the Thailand-Burma border and a laptop full of simulation materials from the State Department to coach the SEAYLP students on crafting position papers and negotiating from there.

“We broke up the group into the five groups and tried to have each country represented in each group,” Aftabizadeh said.

Students were given the task to research their party’s position and draft a position paper. On Tuesday, often working furiously on laptops and in tight whispering huddles, the teams convened in a circle to explain and at times defend or amend their positions. Aftabizadeh presided over the sometimes boisterous proceedings with the help of the adult leaders, who participate in the exercise only as “silent advisers,” not speakers.

Japan, whose fishing fleets range thousands of miles in search of prized bluefin tuna, seemed to take the most heat on Tuesday as its lead negotiator, Willy Wei Li Kong of Brunei, tried to convince the group that getting its population to eat more soybeans would help decrease fish consumption and fishing activity.

The World Wildlife Fund, represented by Gabriel Duen Yue Chan of Singapore, and the UN, represented by Elesha Sue Yuen Chew of Malaysia, appeared unconvinced that Japan could deliver on such an outcome. Micronesia, led by Marina Tan of Malaysia, was emphatically concerned that its fishing exports to Japan would be lessened. But the Japan team held its own.

Shahin Aftabizadeh

Shahin Aftabizadeh

“Good job, Japan; you guys were under fire,” Aftabizadeh told them.

In such a situation, the different cultural backgrounds of the participants can come into play, just like in an actual diplomatic situation, which makes this exercise an especially appropriate one for a program bringing different Southeast Asian countries together, Aftabizadeh said. This is the first SEAYLP group to perform such a simulation, he noted.

The SEAYLP students and leaders are scheduled to depart NIU Saturday, Nov. 13, when they will leave on a study tour focused on the life of Lincoln in Illinois and Indiana, then on to the nation’s capital for five more days of learning activities, and, of course, preparing for their moment in the sun at the State Department Thursday. They leave for their home countries on Saturday, Nov. 20. From there, said CSEAS Director James Collins, many of the participants will put what they’ve learned at NIU into action, as have a number of teams from the 2009-10 SEAYLP groups already.

“Last year’s SEAYLP team from Cambodia staged a big rally to encourage people to keep city streets and parks cleaner. We’ve also had our participants from Vietnam organize an event to raise awareness of the needs of children with cancer in that country,” Collins said. “We just received a video of the Indonesian SEAYLP group planting mangrove trees to help restore the delta ecology in their country.”

The center welcomes its next SEAYLP delegation in spring.

by Liz Poppens Denius, Center for Southeast Asian Studies

Date posted: November 12, 2010 | Author: | Comments Off on Southeast Asian teens on diplomatic maneuvers at NIU

Categories: Centerpiece Global Graduate School Liberal Arts and Sciences

Deb Pierce

Deb Pierce

Two Muslim leaders and a Catholic priest from Indonesia will come to Northern Illinois University on Friday, Nov. 12, to lead an interfaith dialogue on “Religions, Tolerance and Democracy in Indonesia.”  

The event, sponsored by the Indonesian Consulate General in Chicago and NIU’s Division of International Programs, will take place from 10 to 11:30 a.m. in the Heritage Room of the Holmes Student Center.

The Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia in Chicago made arrangements for the three speakers to appear at NIU as part of a joint U.S.-Indonesia initiative on interfaith dialogue.

The Rev. Ignatius Ismartono, a Jesuit priest who works for the Commission of Inter-religious Dialogue of the Bishops’ Conference of Indonesia, will discuss religious tolerance from a Catholic perspective.

Dr. Syafaatun Al-Mirzanah, director of academic affairs and associate professor of Islamic thought at State Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga in Yogyakarta, will present “Islam: A Mosaic, Not a Monolith.”

Dr. M. Syafi’i Anwar, executive director of International Center for Islam and Pluralism, will discuss “Islam and the State of Democracy in Indonesia.”

“Adopting intercultural and interfaith initiatives paves the way for bringing people of different cultures and faiths together to establish, through dialogue and action, a peaceful world based on respect, trust and mutual understanding,” said Deborah Pierce, NIU associate provost for International Programs. “To achieve this end, we invite people from all religions and traditions to attend this discussion.”

Call (815)  753-9526 for more information.

Date posted: November 9, 2010 | Author: | Comments Off on International Programs sponsors Friday dialogue between Indonesian Catholic, Muslim leaders

Categories: Campus Highlights Community Events Global On Campus

Parade of FlagsA reception recognizing the Outstanding International Educator for 2010 and a panel discussion featuring current study abroad program directors providing information on preparing to lead a study abroad program will headline International Education Week 2010 at NIU.

A joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education, International Education Week will be celebrated on campuses nationwide from Nov. 15 to Nov. 19.

“Each year, NIU mounts one of the broadest selections of events during this national observation, in order to highlight the many outstanding aspects of our global endeavor,” said Deborah Pierce, associate provost for International Programs. “This year’s theme, ‘Global NIYou,’ reflects the idea that individual students, faculty and staff make significant contributions to the global nature of this university.”

The annual International Recognition Reception will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday, Nov. 15, in the Sky Room of the Holmes Student Center. The event is open to the public, and a light buffet lunch will be served. 

At the reception, the Outstanding International Educator Award will be presented to an NIU faculty member who has contributed significantly to international education through his or her teaching, research, public service and student service.

International Programs also will honor the department that has made the most significant contribution to the internationalization effort across campus. In addition, the division will honor a student who has made an outstanding contribution to international education at NIU.

Virginia Cassidy and Gabriel Holbrook

Virginia Cassidy and Gabriel Holbrook

Virginia Cassidy, vice provost for Academic Planning and Development, and Gabriel Holbrook, professor of biological sciences, will speak at the reception. Cassidy leads NIU’s program accreditation and review efforts, while Holbrook was named Outstanding International Educator in 2009. 

Also on Nov. 15, the Study Abroad Office will offer a panel on “How to Lead a Study Abroad Program.” Experienced faculty leaders of programs abroad — including Jeff Chown of the Department of Communication, Alex Gelman of the School of Theatre and Dance, Eric Jones of the Department of History and Peter Magnusson of the Department of Marketing — will share their secrets of creating and organizing effective courses and opportunities in other countries.

“This is a great opportunity for any faculty member who’s ever wondered how to get started in study abroad,” said Anne Seitzinger, director of the Study Abroad Office.  “Our experienced colleagues will provide both practical and experiential information during this panel.” 

Zeta Gamma Chapter of Phi Beta Delta, the Honor Society for International Scholars, is holding its seventh annual induction ceremony, by invitation only, on Thursday, Nov. 18.  

NIU College of Business Dean Denise Schoenbachler will be inducted into the society and will speak about the many global efforts of the College of Business, while Professor Emeritus Clark Neher of the Department of Political Science will be initiated as an honorary member of the chapter.

In addition, Virginia Noe, founder of the DeKalb chapter of Bread for the World, and Larry Rosenberg, friend of International Programs from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, will also be inducted as honorary members.

“Because international achievements can sometimes go unrecognized, honoring our students, colleagues and friends for excellence in global endeavors is vital. For that reason this induction is one of the real highlights of the week,” Pierce said. 

Other activities include:

  • an invitation-only luncheon to honor NIU faculty leaders of study abroad programs and Cobb Fellows, faculty who have been awarded financial support for special projects abroad;
  • a workshop for students interested in the Student Fulbright Program;
  • a workshop from Employee Assistance titled “Respect: Giving it and Receiving It” (registration required);
  • and the weekly brown bag luncheon of the International Student & Faculty Office, featuring Kathleen Musker speaking about experiences in Ireland.

Programs geared especially for students include the International Student Reception on Tuesday Nov. 16, and the Study Abroad Reunion on Wednesday, Nov. 17.  

The week will conclude with a joint presentation from International Programs and the Center for Southeast Asian Studies given by Jones. He will speak on “The Value of Study Abroad: Engaged Learning through Global Engagement” at 11:45 a.m. Friday, Nov. 19, in the Sky Room of Holmes Student Center. Light refreshments will be served. 

A full schedule of events for International Education Week is available online.

Date posted: November 9, 2010 | Author: | Comments Off on International Education Week begins Nov. 15

Categories: Awards Centerpiece Events Faculty & Staff Global

Photo of moneyNIU students are invited to attend a workshop on salary negotiations for women.

A woman in the United States earns an average of 77 cents for each dollar that a man earns. The workshop is aimed at helping women who graduate from college learn to negotiate for equitable pay.

NIU’s Office of the President and the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women are sponsoring the event, scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday, Nov. 15, in Gabel Hall Room 01D.

To reserve a workshop space, e-mail PCSW@NIU.EDU.

Date posted: November 4, 2010 | Author: | Comments Off on Seminar to explore salary negotiations for women

Categories: Briefs Faculty & Staff What's Going On

NIU Communication Professor Laura Vazquez will screen her powerful new documentary on homelessness at 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 20, in Wirtz Hall 101. The event is free of charge, and the public is welcome.

It will be the first DeKalb screening of “on the edge.” The one-hour documentary focuses on the lives of seven women as they reveal the complex and poignant stories of their fall from housing and independence, the traumatic effects on their children and their struggles to escape homelessness.

Vazquez, the film’s director, and producer Diane Nilan, a nationally prominent advocate for the homeless, spent the last four years working to tell the women’s stories. Far from the stereotypes many people envision, the most common faces of homelessness in the United States belong to women and children.

Diane Nilan

'On the Edge' producer Diane Nilan

A premiere screening of the documentary was held recently in Naperville during a tribute to the late Mary Lou Cowlishaw, a longtime state representative who championed the rights of homeless students. Among the audience members were Naperville Mayor A. George Pradel and U.S. Representative Judy Biggert (R-IL-13th).

“Reactions to the film were very positive and generated a lot of discussion,” Vazquez says, adding that the stories provide inspiration. One of the women featured in the documentary is now speaking at conferences on behalf of victims of domestic violence. Another overcame an addiction, earned a master’s degree in social work and launched programs to assist and empower people who are homeless.

“The film demonstrates that it’s essential to help people get back on their feet again because they have important contributions to make to society,” Vazquez says.

The Naperville screening prompted an invitation to enter “on the edge” in next year’s Naperville Independent Film Festival. The documentary also is scheduled to be screened Nov. 8, in Houston during the Annual Conference of the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth.

Vazquez is a veteran documentary maker and professor who teaches courses at NIU in media production. While making the film, she traveled the country with Nilan filming interviews, spent hundreds of hours editing videotape and even lived for a week in a Louisiana shelter.

Nilan, who will be on hand during the DeKalb screening, is a former Aurora shelter director who has spent 25 years advocating for the homeless.

In 2005, Nilan founded the non-profit Hear Us, a Naperville-based organization that aims to raise awareness. That same year, she sold her home, took out a mortgage on an RV and embarked on a cross-country journey, along the way videotaping interviews with homeless children, teens and their parents in places not typically associated with homelessness — small towns, rural areas, resort communities and affluent mid-sized cities.

Upon her return, Nilan first met Vazquez, and the pair partnered to produce a series of short documentaries on the rights of homeless children in public schools. They knew a larger story was in the making.

“We both realized the incredible potential these stories had to enlighten, inspire and reshape the way Americans viewed families and youth without homes,” says Nilan, who continues her cross-country journeys to non-urban communities to chronicle poverty and homelessness.

The work of the filmmakers was endorsed and encouraged by each of the women portrayed in the documentary. DVDs of “on the edge” will be available for purchase at the DeKalb screening. The documentary is aimed at a general audience but also will likely be used in university-level social work, healthcare and education programs.

More information on the new documentary, including trailers and short biographies of the women featured in the film, is available online. To arrange for a screening, contact Laura Vazquez at (815) 753-7132 or lvazquez@niu.edu; or Diane Nilan at (630) 225-5012 or dianehearus@gmail.com.

Date posted: November 4, 2010 | Author: | Comments Off on Nov. 20 campus screening set for ‘on the edge’

Categories: Centerpiece Communiversity Events Faculty & Staff Liberal Arts and Sciences Visual

Northern Illinois University senior honors student Kate Green comes from a family of overachievers—and she seems destined to follow in those same footsteps.

Green’s mom and dad are both Ph.D.-trained chemists and NIU alums. Her grandfather, retired Political Science Professor James Banovetz, is an NIU legend, credited with founding the university’s nationally ranked graduate program in public administration.

Kate Green

Kate Green

The 22-year-old Green is blazing quite a trail of her own at NIU, where she has been named as the 2010 Student Lincoln Laureate—an annual honor reserved for the top senior from each of the state’s public and private four-year colleges and universities.

The awards, which recognize excellence in both curricular and extracurricular activities, will be presented during the annual Student Laureate Convocation at 11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 6, at the historic Old State Capitol in Springfield.

“Kate is an academic superstar, a superb member of the NIU community and a wonderful person with an exceedingly bright future ahead of her,” says Christopher Jones, who nominated Green and chairs the NIU Department of Political Science. “She has an intellectual maturity and curiosity that is uncommon for an undergraduate. She is also a natural and proven leader.”

Green graduated from Geneva High School in 2007 and came to NIU with impeccable credentials: AP Scholar, Illinois Scholar, National Merit Scholar Finalist and recipient of the U.S. Girl Scouts’ Gold Award, the organization’s highest honor for teens. She had scholarship offers, but NIU made the most sense economically and academically.

“I knew Northern was a research university, but I also knew the university really focused on undergraduate education. I wasn’t going to be just a number,” she says. “Most of my classes have been with full professors who are well known in their fields.”

At NIU, she picked up where she left off in high school, winning multiple scholarships and accolades. Green will graduate in May with bachelor’s degrees in both political science and economics, along with a minor in Chinese. She has a perfect 4.0 grade point average.

Additionally, Green is already an active and published scholar of international relations. In March, she will present her latest research study—on U.S.-Iranian relations—at an international studies conference in Canada.

“I decided when I was 12 years old that I was going to be a political scientist, although I didn’t really know what it meant,” Green says, adding that her political scientist grandfather was her childhood hero.

After graduation next spring, Green intends to pursue a Ph.D. in political science, specializing in international relations. Her list of potential graduate schools includes Notre Dame, Northwestern and the University of Chicago. Ultimately, she plans on becoming a university professor. 

“I’ve always been a driven person, and I definitely get that from my parents,” she says. “My friends joke that I’m going into the family business, because we’re all academically minded. I just love school and always have.”

Despite the time Green devotes to academics, she somehow finds time for a part-time job and numerous extracurricular activities. She works 13 hours a week as a peer adviser for the NIU Honors Program. She also is an active member of the student ministry team for the Newman Catholic Student Center and serves on the Student Advisory Council for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

“I’m a type-A personality,” Green says, “so every moment ends up being scheduled. Some days I spend 13 or 14 hours on campus without a break.”

Green also was selected as vice chair of the Political Science Student Advisory Committee, where she works alongside professors, interviews faculty candidates and provides input on the department’s new hires. The experiences may come in handy someday when she interviews for faculty jobs herself.

“I just work really hard, take opportunities where they come and things just fall into place,” Green says.

Other NIU students considered for the Lincoln Laureate included first finalist Kara Piazza, a political science major from Cortland, and finalist Kaylee Walters, a biological sciences major from Rockton. Also nominated were Julia Funke, a Spanish translation and business major from Lake Zurich; Elizabeth Gibble, an actuarial science major from St. Charles; Colette Morgan, a political science major from Evergreen Park; and David Thomas, a journalism/political science major from West Chicago.

Date posted: November 2, 2010 | Author: | Comments Off on Kate Green named NIU Student Lincoln Laureate

Categories: Awards Centerpiece Faculty & Staff Global Liberal Arts and Sciences Students