News items from Illinois colleges.

Illinois State

Pair honored for political engagement

NORMAL - Two Illinois State University professors will become national role models for how to teach college students to be politically engaged.

Bob Bradley and Stephen Hunt have been named Carnegie Foundation/American Association of Colleges and Universities Political Engagement Scholars.

In this capacity, the two ISU professors will expand their work to help ISU instructors incorporate political awareness and engagement activities into general curriculum. They'll also develop a model to create similar programs at other U.S. campuses participating in the Political Engagement Project.

Bradley teaches politics and government at ISU; Hunt teaches communication.

ISU is one of eight universities selected to take part in the pilot project, directed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

For information, visit the group's Web site at www.americandemocracy.ilstu.edu/pep.

Norhtern Illinois

University press director retires

DeKALB - After 27 years, the longest-serving university press director in the country is retiring this week from Northern Illinois University.

Mary Lincoln, who has worked at the university for 31 years, put NIU Press on the map as a publisher of nationally significant works. The press publishes nonfiction in the humanities, arts and social sciences fields.

When Lincoln became director in 1980, the press published just two titles a year. Today it averages 21. She was responsible for building the press' reputation as a distinguished publisher of Russian history and strengthening its position as a publisher of regional history.

Lincoln will be replaced by J. Alex Schwartz, an editor with a successful track record at university publishing houses, including Yale and the University of Chicago.

Western Illinois

Goldfarb to speak at Hallwas Lecture

MACOMB - Western Illinois University President Al Goldfarb will share his thoughts about the value of a liberal arts education at a lecture at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 25 in the University Union grand ballroom on the WIU-Macomb campus.

"My presentation will focus on how I believe the liberal arts impact my philosophy of leadership, as well as how my career as a university administrator and theater professor have been impacted by the lessons of a strong liberal arts education," said Goldfarb, who is WIU's College of Arts and Sciences 2007 John Hallwas Liberal Arts Lecturer.

Goldfarb was a fixture for 25 years at Illinois State University, last serving as provost, before being named WIU president in July 2002

The lecture focuses on educational challenges beyond WIU, said Hallwas, who presented the inaugural lecture in September 2003.

"It reminds us, at the outset of every academic year, that real education is not merely acquired skills or useful information but an open-ended process of inner growth, which is indispensable in our time of rapid change, cultural complexity, social conflict and spiritual anxiety," Hallwas said.

Michele Steinbacher of the Pantagraph, Dana Herra of The Daily Chronicle and Western Illinois University contributed to this report.