ECC student journalists get accolades
Congrats to student journalists at Elgin Community College!
For the second year in a row, the school's newspaper, the Observer, was named the best newspaper in its division at the annual Illinois Community College Journalism Association Conference, held at ECC in mid-April.
The college competes in the Division II category, which includes about 10 newspapers that publish monthly or triweekly at community colleges with more than 5,000 students. Several individual student brought home awards as well.
Parkwood honors philosopher, architect: At 9:30 a.m. today, Parkwood Elementary School in Hanover Park will hold a special Arbor Day celebration.
The village has been named a Tree City USA by the National Arbor Day Foundation, according to district officials. This year, a tree will be planted at the school to celebrate the historic significance of philosopher, architect, poet and leader Nezahualcoyotl.
As part of the ceremony, the school's sixth grade bilingual education class will recite the poem "Be Joyful/Alegraos" by Nezahualcoyotl. and share part of a recent project on family conservation traditions.
NIU boasts new geography Ph.D. program: Northern Illinois University officials announced this week that the school has become the second in the state to offer a doctorate in geography.
According to the Tuesday news release, the college, which has two students now working toward a Ph.D., aims to build the program up to 15 part-and full-time students. With 200 students working toward undergraduate degrees in geography, and another 35 students working toward master's degrees, NIU has the largest geography program in the state. Its undergraduate meteorology program is especially popular.
Andrew Krmenec, geography chair, said the department first began rolling the idea of a Ph.D. program decades ago.
Students in the new program can choose an emphasis in spatial environmental science or human spatial science, both of which identify and understand geographic relationships, such as the effects of sprawl on traffic patterns or the impact of climate change on human activities.
Ph.D. candidates must have a master's degree, but it doesn't have to be in geography.
"We have applicants with degrees in architecture, business, civil engineering, urban planning and the atmospheric sciences," Krmenec said in the release. "Yet their interest is primarily focused on geography, or how humans use space and how things are distributed by nature across geographic space."