NIU Today

Bob and Lois Self have made a commitment to establish the Dr. Lois Self Fund in the Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, supporting faculty and students in their educational, research and artistry pursuits. The fund pays tribute to the significant contributions Lois made to the Women’s Studies Program, which later evolved...

Department of History Chair Valerie Garver is seeing the fruits of a fellowship that allowed her to spend all of last fall’s semester collaborating with other medieval historians in Germany. Garver, who teaches a variety of courses on the Middle Ages at NIU, was nominated and selected for the prestigious Mercator Fellowship to lecture, conduct...

Spend a few minutes reviewing letters supporting History Professor Beatrix Hoffman for a Board of Trustee Professorship and you’ll quickly find you need more time—there were more than a dozen lengthy testimonials to the quality of both her teaching and scholarship. Most importantly, it’s clear her students, colleagues and peers view her as a significant...

In March of 2020, the NIU undergraduate mock trial team was ecstatic when it was announced they had taken second place out of 24 teams at the Opening Round Championship Series (ORCS) tournament at the Kane County Judicial Center in Geneva, Illinois. This earned them a bid to the American Mock Trial Association’s (AMTA) National...

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences honored 12 alumni, faculty and staff Oct. 22 during their annual event at Barsema Alumni and Visitors Center. The CLAS Distinguished Awards program honors individuals who have achieved prominence in their professional fields or who have made major contributions to the college, its mission and its reputation for...

History Professor Sean Farrell and his former doctoral student Mathieu Billings have a new book out that sheds light on the history of Irish people in Illinois from the colonial period to the 21st century. Farrell and Billings, now a faculty associate in history and political science at the University of Indianapolis, will deliver a...

  Geraldine Heng, an award-winning author will present “What’s Religion Got to Do with It? Seeing, Reading, Teaching Race in the European Middle Ages” during the Department of History’s annual Lincoln Lecture, scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 9 virtually via Zoom. Advanced registration is required. Go to http://go.niu.edu/Lincoln-Lecture-RSVP to request a link to the...

Report includes a comprehensive profile of the nonprofit sector, impact of COVID-19 McHenry County is home to nearly 2,000 nonprofit organizations of all sizes. A new, comprehensive study conducted by Northern Illinois University provides a glimpse at their structure, funding, programs, challenges and the impact of COVID-19. The Center for Nonprofit and NGO Studies at...

NIU Chemistry Professor Douglas Klumpp’s daughter, Rachel, basically grew up by his side in Faraday Hall. She’d watch Disney movies in her father’s office. On weekends when the building was empty, she’d ride her big wheel up and down the halls as her father worked. This fall, she’ll walk those hallways as a National Merit...

A.J. Dick, an NIU student pursuing his doctorate in physics, has won a prestigious graduate student research award from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The DOE announced recently that Dick is among 78 students from across the nation to be selected for its Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program. The research projects...

Each year NIU recognizes and honors outstanding undergraduate teaching. Tenured faculty members are honored with the Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award and full-time instructors are honored with the Excellence in Undergraduate Instruction Award. Undergraduate students take the lead in the nominating process and student advisory committees in each college nominate faculty members by assembling student...

When Leila Porter looks at Giovanni Bennardo, she sees “a world-renowned linguistic anthropologist and cognitive scientist.” The chair of the NIU Department of Anthropology sees in Bennardo someone who “clearly shapes research agendas at both the national and international level,” who receives prestigious grants for his scholarship, who helps to establish new programs and laboratories...