NIU Today

“I love it. This is a very welcoming, open place.” Tony Kasa is a sophomore at NIU, with a double major in Mathematical Sciences and Journalism. Kasa discovered the Mathematics Assistance Center (MAC) during his freshman year and says, it has been a great asset in his learning process, ever since. “The people here are...

History Professor Damián Fernández has written a book that sheds light on how local aristocracies along the Atlantic river valleys of western Iberia lived through the ebb and flow of empire and kingdoms in late antiquity. Fernández will deliver a talk on the book – entitled “Aristocrats and Statehood in Western Iberia, 300-600 C.E., Empire...

Northern Illinois University received $158,531 in U.S. Department of Labor funding to promote workplace safety, health training and education. With this grant, employers and employees without high amounts of funding can receive free mental health and suicide prevention training. This will be targeted towards small businesses, as well as at-risk and hard-to-reach workers in the...

The holidays were a little brighter for residents at two local long-term care facilities thanks to a group of  Huskies from the NIU student organization, Music and Memory. Both Lincolnshire Memory Care in Sycamore and Aperion Care in DeKalb were filled with smiles, laughter and the sound of music in December when residents performed a...

Wastewater testing stations installed across campus to detect outbreaks of COVID-19, are now helping NIU keep tabs on two other respiratory diseases, Influenza A and the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). “Carriers of those diseases (and many others) “shed” the virus through the gastrointestinal tract,” says Barrie Bode, Director of Wastewater Surveillance Testing, who oversees the...

NIU Associate Professor Nicole LaDue recently served as a panelist for a national effort to improve STEM teaching through more equitable and effective approaches to instruction. On December 5th, LaDue provided input on a draft report for the Board on Science Education at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM). The report, entitled...

When Casey Walters, ’19, M.S. ’20, was growing up in St. Charles, Illinois, she had no idea what technology developers did. But her time at NIU helped her to find her passion for information systems and coding. “I never had a great answer for the, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’...

Born in 1960 to parents from the so-called Greatest Generation, Hidetada Shimizu grew up surrounded by values that were shaped by both the before and the after of World War II. Shimizu lived in the countryside of Takasaki, Japan, where his father, Noboru, a school principal, took him hiking in the mountains to collect plants...

The process of completing your education involves a series of choices. At Northern Illinois University, we are working to make sure students do not have to choose whether to purchase course materials as part of that process. Cost of course materials is a direct factor in how students approach their collegiate experience. A recent study...

The NIU Esports Arena recently purchased two accessible controllers to make it easier for NIU students with disabilities to play video games. The new controllers are one more way for NIU Esports, in the Division of Outreach, Engagement and Regional Development, to bring to life the program’s vision of an inclusive space for students and...

“Being able to explore different avenues has really allowed me to find out who I want to be.” Alexandra Alcantar is a first-generation college student at Northern Illinois University, majoring in Political Science with minors in Latino and Latin American Studies and Computer Science. Alcantar currently is representing NIU as the university’s 2023-2024 Newman Civic Fellow....

Arthur D. Graffam, a 1941 alumnus of Northern Illinois University (NIU), has posthumously made a monumental contribution to his alma mater. His estate has generously donated over $2.4 million, split between the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology (CEET) and the College of Education (COE). COE acting Dean Bill Pitney expressed deep gratitude for this...