NIU Today

Amy Powers, an assistant professor of history at Waubonsee Community College, has been selected by NIU’s Department of History as its alumnus of the year. Powers, of DeKalb, obtained a Ph.D. in history from NIU in 2007 and has taught classes at Waubonsee since 2003. She will be formally presented with the award this fall....

Retirement apparently can’t stand in the way of Stephen Foster’s quest to uncover the American past. Foster, a Distinguished Research Professor of history who retired in 2002 after an illustrious career at NIU, hasn’t slowed down a bit. Foster this summer was a special guest lecturer at Oxford University as Oxford University Press launched his new...

Every generation has its bold ideas, ideas so powerful that they can change the destiny of an entire town Long before Northern Illinois University was a glimmer in the region’s eye, DeKalb and Sycamore were locked in a heated race over which town would bring railroad service to the county. When DeKalb secured the railroad...

NIU President Doug Baker makes his thoughts on internships abundantly clear. “Research tells us that the No. 1 predictor of Student Career Success isn’t a student’s major or grades. Rather, it comes down to this: Did the student complete an internship, preferably a paid internship, during college?” Baker said during his November inaugural address. “We...

Distinguished Research Professor Kenton Clymer is back at the Department of History after spending the month of December teaching at Yangon University in Burma, known officially as Myanmar. The first foreign visiting professor to teach at Yangon’s Department of History since 1962, Clymer was invited by department head and professor Margaret Wong following the visit...

Aaron Spencer Fogleman, a professor in the NIU Department of History, celebrated the publication of a new book last month. “Two Troubled Souls: An Eighteenth-Century Couple’s Spiritual Journey in the Atlantic World,” published by the University of North Carolina Press, tells the story of Jean-François Reynier, a French Swiss Huguenot, and his wife, Maria Barbara...

NIU has finally broken through. Thomas Bouril, senior University Honors student and history major, is the first Huskie ever selected to interview for a chance to receive a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. As a finalist, Bouril was invited to spend a weekend in Chicago to compete for the chance to earn a Master of Letters in History...

NIU Professor Emeritus Robert W. Schneider, who taught in the Department of History from 1961 until his retirement in 1998, died Wednesday, Oct. 16, in DeKalb. He was 80. Born in 1933 in Loudonville, Ohio, he earned his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1959. He completed his master’s degree at Western Reserve University...

Kristy Wilson Bowers, an instructor in the NIU Department of History, has a new book out that sheds light on the plague and public health policy in Seville. Wilson Bowers will deliver a talk on the book – titled “Plague and Public Health in Early Modern Seville” (University of Rochester Press) – at 3 p.m....

Ismael Montana, an NIU professor in the Department of History, has authored a new book on Tunisia, the first Muslim country to abolish slavery in the modern period. Montana will deliver a talk on the book – titled “The Abolition of Slavery in Ottoman Tunisia” (University Press of Florida) – at 2:30 p.m. Friday, Sept....

Richard White, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated historian of the American West and MacArthur “genius grant” recipient, will visit NIU to deliver the 10th annual installment of the W. Bruce Lincoln Endowed Lecture Series. White, who serves as the Margaret Byrne Professor of American History at Stanford University, will begin his talk at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept....

J.D. Bowers believes he has found the perfect position to capitalize on his diverse teaching, administrative and service experience: associate vice provost of University Honors. Bowers begins his new job Monday, July 1. “University Honors has some of the most engaged and rigorous academic offerings, exciting programming and sustained student, faculty, staff and alumni outreach...