NIU History Professor E. Taylor Atkins has a written a new book that explores the complex history of Japanese colonial and postcolonial interactions with Korea, particularly in matters of cultural policy.
This book focuses on past and present Japanese fascination with Korean culture as he reassesses colonial anthropology, heritage curation, cultural policy and Korean performance art in Japanese mass media culture.
Atkins’s new perspective challenges the prevailing view that imperial Japan demonstrated unrelenting contempt for Koreans through a dogged suppression of Korean culture.
In Atkins’s insightful analysis, the Japanese preoccupation with Koreana provided the empire with a poignant vision of its own past, now lost—including communal living, social solidarity and cultural integrity—which then allowed Japanese to grieve for their former selves. At the same time, the specific objects of Japan’s gaze—folk theater, dances, shamanism, music and material heritage—became emblems of national identity in postcolonial Korea.
Date posted: August 24, 2010 | Author: Thomas Parisi | Comments Off on History professor E. Taylor Atkins publishes new book on Japanese views of Korea
Freeman, a professor of pharmacology, spent the past 15 years at Kansas State University, where she most recently served as associate vice president for Innovation at the Olathe Innovation Campus. At K-State, she earned a reputation as a highly accomplished teacher, scientist and administrator with a strong record of attracting external funding and building collaborations.
In her new role at NIU, which she began July 1, Freeman is taking those talents to an even higher level, serving as the chief administrative officer of the Graduate School and the university’s chief academic research officer.
NIU Today caught up with Freeman recently to discuss her vision for research at NIU.
NIU Today: Now that you’re settled in, what’s job No. 1?
Lisa Freeman: I’d say my first priority is communicating to the faculty that I’m here to support and facilitate their research efforts. We need to reduce barriers and reward success by making sure faculty have the time and resources they need to perform their scholarly activities. That means minimizing paperwork, for example, and providing recognition for their accomplishments.
I also want to make sure we continue to recruit and retain graduate students from diverse groups and backgrounds and that the degrees we offer them prepare them for jobs inside and outside academia.
NIU Today: How does the NIU research mission benefit students?
Sometimes we must remind ourselves that research and teaching are not at odds. Students are best served by a university that both creates and delivers new knowledge. Research must be integrated within the education mission at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Our students benefit by learning from and assisting faculty members who are on the cutting-edge of their respective fields. University research energizes faculty, provides students with opportunities to become partners in discovery, helps prepare the future workforce and ultimately plays a large role in job creation.
NIU Today: Where will the government be putting its funding dollars in coming years?
The No. 1 priority for everyone in government is jobs. But funders also are increasingly asking non-traditional partners to come together to solve society’s complex challenges in such areas as the environment, health care, and energy and sustainable-resource management.
NIU Today:What investments should NIU make to match federal research priorities and leverage external funding opportunities?
NIU is already making very smart investments. Through the Strategic Plan, faculty members have identified areas of strength on which to focus our research mission.
Those areas include STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) engagement, nanotechnology and the physical sciences, and issues related to the environment, energy and sustainability.We hope to build on our successes and form more research partnerships.
One of my initial goalsis to assess all of the data related to the university’s investment of resources toward its research mission. I want to make sure we’re getting the maximum return.
We also need to get out the word about what we do very well. We have a large number of students in engineering, for example, who are working with companies to solve real-world problems. We have been successful in recruiting and retaining significant numbers of minority graduate students as well. We contribute to building the diverse workforce of the future, and people don’t realize how successful NIU has been.
NIU Today: What excites you most about coming to NIU?
My house is undergoing a renovation so I’ve actually met a lot of students this summer at the local laundromat. I’ve met alumni around town as well. It’s quite apparent that people feel very loyal to NIU. Many students come here because they know someone who got a degree here and they want to emulate that person and be a part of a university that has such a great heritage of serving the region. NIU has a very collegial atmosphere, and human resources are always your greatest asset. I couldn’t be happier to be here.
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean Christopher McCord, Women’s Studies Director Amy Levin, Associate Professor Brianno Coller in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Associate Professor Lesley Rigg in the Department ofGeography will receive $161,284 from the National Science Foundation, effective Sept. 1, to fund planning efforts for the submission of a full proposal to NSF’s ADVANCE program. The program focuses on increasing the participation and advancement of women in academic science and engineering careers.
Assistant Professor Minmei Hou in the Department of Computer Science has received a three-year, $316,455 Academic Research Enhancement Award from the National Human Genome Research Institute.The project’s goal is to improve computer methodology for detecting small realignments or rearrangements in genetic sequences.
“Current DNA sequencing methods rapidly produce data with high precision, but current computer software that pieces those large volumes of data together into genomic sequences often misses such fine-scale detail,” Biological Sciences Chair Barrie Bode said. “This research project is significant in that it will provide improved fidelity in reading and interpreting entire genomes and facilitate more useful comparisons, both between species and within single species.”
Associate Professor Philippe Piotin the Department of Physics has received $590,910 from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. The grant funds work on techniques in particle acceleration that could pave the way toward a table-top accelerator-based light source that could be used for remote detection of fissionable materials.
Assistant Professor JamesHornin the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistryhas received $69,354 (the first installment of a four-year, $293,881 award) from the American Heart Association. The grant will support a study of the physical and chemical mechanisms by which antibodies recognize and bind to small target molecules, and also of ways to develop new antibody fragments that can be used to target specific molecules or structures for pharmaceutical or biological research.
Assistant Professor Dmitry Kadnikovin the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has received $71,500 (the first installment of a three-year, $214,500 award) from the Greater Midwest Affiliate of the American Heart Association. The grant supports efforts to develop selective modulators that would activate only genes involved in transport of cholesterol out of liver cells, but not genes involved in the synthesis of fatty acids.
Distinguished Research Professor Peter Meserve in the Department of Biological Sciences has received $22,607 (the first installment of a four-year, $42,317 award) from the National Science Foundation. The grant will help him continue a 20-year study of interactions between plant and animal communities in a semi-arid region of Chile. The project, carried out in collaboration with Chilean researchers, also looks at the effects of climate change on the region and is expected to provide a baseline for comparison with other similar regions around the world.
Assistant Professor Christina Papadimitriouin the School of Nursing and Health Studies has received $65,000 from the National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research at the U.S. Department of Education for research on the improvement of client-centered care for individuals with spinal cord injuries in inpatient rehabilitation centers.
Associate Professor John Bentleyin the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures received $6,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend program to use philological, linguistic and literary data from ancient Korean and Japanese texts to create a convenient dictionary of ancient Japanese for students and scholars of Asia. The Japanese language is a linguistic museum, preserving as it does Chinese linguistic data that has disappeared from other countries. Scholars and students who study Asia will now have access to a compact resource for historical linguistics.
Professor John Schaeffer in the Department of English received $50,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to write a book on Giambattista Vico, which resolves the debate over natural law without provoking other debates over reason, religion, public good or individual rights.
Assistant Professor Ismael Montana in the Department of History received $11,000 from the British Library to rescue endangered archival materials and historical manuscripts threatened by overuse and the hazards of the tropical weather in northern Ghana. The materials will be digitized and made available to scholars and library patrons in Ghana, Britain and here at NIU. NIU and the British Library will be co-repositors of this digitized material.
Date posted: August 20, 2010 | Author: Thomas Parisi | Comments Off on Recent grant awards to NIU faculty
Northern Illinois University paid tribute to its 10th president in a ceremony today celebrating the naming of a key building on campus in his honor.
The former Faraday Hall West is now known as John E. La Tourette Hall. Located in the heart of campus, the building houses state-of-the-art physics and chemistry laboratories, lecture halls, classrooms and offices.
Constructed at a cost of $27.7 million, the four-story building first opened its doors in the fall of 1995, during the midst of John La Tourette’s tenure as NIU president. It was dedicated the following spring in a ceremony attended by Gov. Jim Edgar, who noted the facility cemented “NIU’s commitment to science in the cradle of Illinois’ high-tech corridor.”
“John La Tourette certainly left his mark on all corners of this campus,” NIU President John Peters said. “It couldn’t be more fitting, though, to name this building, this hub of scientific activity and learning right here in the heart of our campus, in his honor.”
The university’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously in December to change the building’s name as a tribute to La Tourette, who traveled with his wife, Lili, from their home in Prescott, Ariz., to attend today’s ceremony.
“The current Board of Trustees wanted to honor Dr. La Tourette because the fruits of his service and hard work are apparent just about everywhere on our campus,” said Marc Strauss, chair of the NIU Board of Trustees. “He guided this university through a tremendous period of growth, both in terms of academic programming and our physical campus. He also helped put the destiny of NIU in its own hands, leading efforts to establish the university’s independent Board of Trustees.”
La Tourette came to NIU in 1979 as provost and served as president from 1986 to 2000. Under his leadership, the university doubled its landholdings and embarked on more than $200 million in capital improvements. NIU established three major off-campus education centers and secured funding for the restoration of historic Altgeld Hall and the construction of the Convocation Center. New buildings erected during his tenure included the Campus Life Building, the Engineering Building, the Campus Child Care Center and Faraday West, which now bears his name.
La Tourette also established the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology and nurtured the growth of the College of Law. He added more than a dozen major academic offerings, including Ph.D. programs in physics, mathematical sciences, biological sciences and geology and environmental geosciences.
President Peters noted that La Tourette was “a champion of graduate studies” and a leader who brought together “teams of great people who could work together to get things done.”
“He saw the opportunities that lay ahead for expanded collaborations with our nearby national laboratories, Fermilab and Argonne,” Peters said. “In fact, he lobbied two decades for the physics Ph.D. It was among his toughest battles, waged during an era when academic programs were being taken away from state-run universities.”
Ultimately, it was the addition of La Tourette Hall, which provided state-of-the-art facilities for the sciences, along with the creation of an independent NIU Board of Trustees, that helped spur state approval of the physics Ph.D.
After NIU’s own Board of Trustees was established in 1996, founding trustees including Myron Siegel, Bob Boey, Manny Sanchez and George Moser carried the torch for a physics Ph.D. to the Board of Higher Education and state legislature. It was the continuation of an effort that involved many university employees and had begun even before La Tourette first came to NIU.
“It took 30 years of persistent articulation of the strength of the faculty, the department’s strategic relationship with Argonne and Fermi, and the program’s contributions to the Illinois economy to bring the program to this building,” La Tourette said.
Today La Tourette Hall stands as a symbol of the university’s commitment to research and graduate studies in the sciences.
Both the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Department of Physics are flourishing, with about 60 graduate students each. The departments have nurtured young and talented researchers and have been major suppliers to the high-tech workforce in the greater northern Illinois region.
“It is probably difficult for current members of the faculty and staff to realize how hard the university fought to achieve its mission in the sciences and to retain its other doctoral programs,” La Tourette said.
“It is especially gratifying for me to be here today and accept this honor on behalf of all those many people who made this building and the doctoral mission of the university possible.”
Media Contact: Tom Parisi, NIU Media Relations and Internal Communications Phone: (815) 753-3635 Email: tparisi@niu.edu
Date posted: June 28, 2010 | Author: Thomas Parisi | Comments Off on NIU celebrates John E. La Tourette Hall
