During his 1970-71 senior year at Thornridge High School in suburban Dolton, Ill., Allan Vest played on a now-legendary basketball team crowned as state champions in the first of its back-to-back titles. Membership in a club like that offers bragging rights that
Read moreCOE Student Spotlight: Tim Mack
Hometown: Oak Park, Ill. Program: M.S. Sport Management Status: Spring 2020 graduate What inspired you to pursue this degree/career? I have always had a passion for sports, and this same feeling continued when I enrolled into NIU back in 2013. Going the
Read moreICYMI: Committee for Academic Equity and Inclusive Excellence final statement
NIU Chief Diversity Officer Vernese Edghill-Walden has an important message for College of Education faculty and staff. Greetings to the College of Education Faculty and Staff, At the start of this year, the Committee for Academic Equity and Inclusive Excellence shared a
Read moreEducational Administration alumni lead school districts through COVID-19 crisis
Brian Harris, M.S.Ed. ’91, Ph.D. ’01, had visited the bustling cafeteria of Barrington High School many times before. He had never regarded it the way he did March 12, however, through the social-distancing lens of COVID-19. “We have 650 kids eating lunch
Read moreKildeer partners with NIU to provide teachers tools for ELL success stories
As the demographics of Kildeer Countryside Community Consolidated School District 96 began shifting within the last decade, administrators responded. The solution they implemented in 2017 continues to benefit not only the K-8 students of Buffalo Grove and Long Grove but also the
Read moreJacobs HS Principal Barb Valle reflects on NIU-launched administrative career
Most parents would love to hear that their daughter wanted to become a teacher. Not Barb Valle’s, however, who were less than thrilled when she dropped her original major in International Business. “I’m originally from Princeton, Ill. I had a wonderful, wonderful
Read moreCleaning up: Ed.S. student recalls path from custodian to curriculum director
Like many teens, Michael Courington was dying to get a job. “My family didn’t have a lot of money growing up. I was chomping at the bit to turn 16 to start working because I wanted a car,” Courington says. “My mother
Read moreAlumni Accomplishments
Congratulations to these alumni who are making a positive impact on the leadership and administration of education at all levels! Jim Aalfs, M.S.Ed. Educational Administration, ’00, will become principal of Barrington Middle School-Station Campus in Barrington 220. He has served as the
Read morePodcast features Laura Ruth Johnson
Laura Ruth Johnson’s search for local knowledge from the direct source – the people who live those realities and the grassroots organizations they populate – has taken her from Chicago to Puerto Rico to Taiwan and beyond. Johnson’s community-based research serves to
Read moreA message from Dean Laurie Elish-Piper
As a finals week like no other begins, bringing to a close a semester like no other, it seems like an appropriate time to reflect. However, it is important now that we also look ahead at a university that will look and
Read moreFood for thought: Special Ed faculty tap technology to maintain early clinicals
Faculty from the Department of Special and Early Education (SEED) knew that their technological pivot of early clinical teaching requirements during COVID-19 was making lemonade from lemons. Among the things they learned from the abrupt shift from actual K-12 classrooms to Blackboard
Read moreAlumna Yuni Lopez experiences strike, COVID-19 in wild first year of teaching
Had life gone as planned, Yuni Lopez would be a nurse by now. And, given the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, that career choice would have generated quite the extraordinary first year out of college. But that doesn’t mean the last 12 months have
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