NIU Today

Anne Hanley, associate professor of history and interim director of the Center for Non-Governmental Organization Leadership and Development (NGOLD), has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend Award to continue her research on how the first census and the adoption of the metric system affected Brazil’s economy. “This project opens an investigation into...

Robert Berkhofer, associate professor of history at Western Michigan University, will deliver the inaugural Wagner Lecture in Medieval Culture at NIU on “Forgery and Faith in the Liber Traditionum of Saint Peter’s, Ghent.” Berkhofer will speak at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 24, in Cole Hall 100. During his presentation, he will examine motives for the...

Beatrix Hoffman, an NIU history professor accustomed to presenting her research in articles, is now letting the pictures tell thousands of words for her. Hoffman is curator of a traveling exhibition, “For All the People: A Century of Citizen Action in Health Care Reform,” which describes how citizen action has helped shape the American health...

More than 35 Ph.D. and master’s students will present their research Friday, Nov. 6, during the NIU History Graduate Student Association’s eighth annual conference. The research presentations, which begin at 8 p.m. cover topics including the language of law; new histories of the American West; constructing histories of health and disease; genocide and the modern...

The NIU English Department will host film scholar James Naremore, Emeritus Chancellor’s Professor at Indiana University, who will deliver a graduate colloquium lecture titled “Orson Welles at 100.” Naremore will offer a retrospective on the career of Orson Welles, who is among Hollywood’s most famous actors, writers, directors and producers. Welles co-wrote, directed and starred...

On social media and in our newsfeeds and mailboxes, fundraising campaigns featuring needy or suffering children confront us on a daily basis. They seek to grab our attention, stimulate empathy, prick our moral conscience and open our wallets for a good cause. Modern humanitarianism and photographic technologies emerged in the 19th century and came of...

When classes begin in the fall, Emma Kuby will be heading east. The NIU Department of History professor has been awarded a fellowship at Princeton University’s Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies for the 2015 fall term. Kuby is one of five faculty Fellows-in-residence from around the world who will work on projects related...

NIU history professor Beatrix Hoffman will use her expertise of the past to inspire the future generation of physicians Saturday, May 16, when she gives the keynote address at Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine commencement. “Loyola is one of few medical schools in the country that really emphasizes a physician’s social responsibility,” said Hoffman,...

What does teaching accomplish? Jim Schmidt, chair of the NIU Department of History, strives for “true learning.” “Having been in the classroom for more than 20 years, I have come to realize learning is not primarily dependent on what material I present or how I present it. Instead, it’s ab out creating an environment where...

Jim Schmidt wants students awake and engaged in his classroom. The lights stay on. The PowerPoint remains off. Napping and smartphone surfing are unacceptable. But Schmidt also wants students to laugh and enjoy their education. “If serious intellectual pursuit is the overarching idea, that does not mean we can’t have fun while doing it. I...

Brian Bockelman, a visiting scholar at NIU’s Center for Latino and Latin American Studies, has received a major fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to continue his research and writing on Argentine history in the late 19th century. The generous award of $50,400 will allow him to work full-time for 12 months on...

Longtime friends Corrine Wickens and Elsa Glover were jogging together a few years ago when the conversation turned – naturally – to education. What happened next reads like the script of a classic TV commercial for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. NIU’s Wickens, an associate professor in the Department of Literacy and Elementary Education, and Glover,...