NIU Today

Individuals impacting the social space once again headline this year’s Social Impact Summit at NIU. This year’s theme is “Human Impact … Change One Life.” The summit takes place Friday, April 8, at the NIU Barsema and Alumni Visitors Center. Katie Hilborn, founder and director of Global Orphan Prevention, will deliver the keynote presentation. Hilborn’s...

For some, the recent holiday season invokes memories of food overflowing on dining room tables. But for many on college campuses across the country, an abundance of food is far from the reality. Several national media outlets – the Atlantic, the New York Times and Rolling Stone, among others – recently carried stories about hidden...

When Rachel McBride transferred to NIU as an underclassman in 2011 to study nutrition, she unwittingly opened the door to a world of new and unexpected learning opportunities. As an undergraduate in the College of Health and Human Sciences, she studied abroad in Tanzania where she assessed student nutrition needs. This past December, as a...

Entrepreneurs know just how hard it is to earn a buck – so when they make a major gift, you know it’s a cause that they believe in strongly. Such was the case this month when Mike McGrath, a 1970 alumnus of the NIU Department of Management and auto-dealer extraordinaire, and his wife, Kristina, made...

Pitch With a CAUSE is a competition for anyone who has an idea for a business that makes a positive social or environmental impact. The competition is open to anyone interested in making a submission, including high school students, undergraduates, graduates students, non-students, retirees and even kindergarteners. In other words, all are welcome. The team selected...

In between studying and end of semester exams, members of the student organization NIU CAUSE (the Collegiate Association of Unreasonable Social Entrepreneurs) raised and donated $2,500 to four worthy causes. The funds were used for: A new $1,000 CAUSE scholarship in Social Entrepreneurship. The CAUSE scholarship will be awarded annually to qualified NIU students who pursue...

Alum Robert Adducci posed the “key question in life” to honors students today, asking them what they would do with the rest of their lives if they never had to worry about money. The students, who had gathered for lunch and some time with Adducci as part of University Honor’s Souper Wednesday program, had some...

A team of NIU social entrepreneurs will be among the featured guests Friday, April 5, at the Social Impact Summit, at the Barsema Alumni and Visitor Center. The event, hosted by the NIU-based Collegiate Association of Unreasonable Social Entrepreneurs, is intended to educate students (and others) about social entrepreneurism, to inspire them to increase their...

During the fall of 2012, University Honors students Melissa Welsh, Erica Cogswell and Isabelle Bourgeois traveled to Mexico as a part of their Management 411 class. Their instructor, Dennis Barsema, helped students develop an understanding of the basics of microfinance through various interactive activities, engaging case studies and colorful discussions. These discussions helped prepare the...

One year ago, NIU student Jeffrey Lamble found himself exploring the lives of open landfill scavengers in Central America. An estimated 4,000 “waste pickers” in Guatemala City turn small profits by rifling through the 40 acres of trash for reusable items that they can pocket and sometimes sell. This includes food. Unfortunately, their labors expose...

Team Light Up Africa is a step closer to its goal of providing cheap, affordable electricity to the developing world. Their portable generator/energy storage device, the Zoom Box, was selected as one of 200 semifinalist in the Dell Social Innovation Challenge. The competition drew more than 1,700 submissions. NIU’s four students are hoping to launch...

The DeKalb County Chapter of Women in Management, Inc. will host a holiday luncheon Tuesday, Dec. 6, featuring a presentation by Dennis Barsema, social entrepreneur and instructor in the NIU College of Business. Social entrepreneurship recognizes social problems and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create and manage a venture to achieve positive social change. Barsema...