I know that “30 days has September, April, June and November” but honestly, this November flew by even faster than normal!  Seeing as we are in the early days of December, campus has transitioned into our D-Term.  (A few years ago I wrote an epic poem about December Term and last year I wrote about some of the classes you could take off campus during D-Term).  This year, I am going to touch on the classes that you can take on and around campus over D-Term.

When looking over these classes to write this blog, I felt pangs of envy!  These classes are SO COOL!  A few of my favorites include, “Exploring Christmas Traditions” where students explore different types of Christmas celebrations and discuss their impact on our lives and community.  Another class is “Creative Writing in Coffee Houses” (which sounds like my entire undergrad and graduate school experiences!)  In this class students write while having coffee and then share their work with each other!  And then there is “Flash Playwriting: Writing and Performing the 10-minute Play,” a class that teaches students to write sketch comedy like we see on Saturday Night Live.  Finally, the class that we offer every year that I always wish I could take is “Theatre in Chicago”, a class where students go and see shows in the city both at large, main stream theatres and small fringe theatres.

Wow, and that is just a sampling!  There are several more to choose from.  You can read about all the D-Term Classes on our website.  I think these classes are a great chance to stay on campus and get a different perspective of campus and the surrounding areas.  Plus, room and board are covered in the Fall Term costs!

Well, I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday season!

Welcome to November Blog Readers!

I can’t believe we are already deep into the heart of fall.  In fact, I think we even “fall backward” this weekend!   Now that we are in the throes of November, we are getting closer to ‘the big day!’ 11-11-11, North Central College’s 150^th Birthday!

On top of all the Sesquicentennial festivities going on next week, it is also our Homecoming week.  The air is practically crackling with excitement and anticipation for all the events happening next week.

The best part about all of this is, you can still get in on the action!  Colbie Caillat is going to be performing on  campus next Thursday, November 10^th.  You can still get tickets for that show (which I think is going to be amazing!).  For tickets call our box office at 630-637-7469.  You can also check out all the other Homecoming/Sesquicentennial events on our webpage!

I look forward to seeing you all on campus soon!

Good Afternoon Blog Readers!

I can’t believe that we are already reaching the end of October.  Wow, I guess time flies when you are having fun!

The Admission Office is hopping these days.  Your admission counselor  has been  on the road visiting you at your high school.  When we are not on the road we are working hard to get you accepted to North Central College.

You  might be wondering what you should be doing now in your college process.  If you haven’t already, Apply Now.  It is free to do.  So just do it!  If you have applied, come in for a visit.  This is my favorite time of year on campus.  The trees are change color and the students are all bundled up.  It is a perfect time to visit.  We have a visit day coming up that you can register for online.

If you have visited and applied check in with your admission counselor.  You can find out who your admission counselor is here.

I look forward to seeing you all on campus soon!

Ashley

Good Morning Blog Readers. The school year has started off on the right foot. We are in the middle of week two and so much is going on already! My weekly sesquicentennial update for you is Tyra Banks. THE Tyra Banks. She was on campus last week talking about her new fiction novel, Modelland. She presented in the Wentz Concert Hall to a room filled with young women (and a few young men). I found myself in awe of her poise and message. She made it really clear that her priority was school and being true to yourself. (BOO YEAH Tyra!). When the young girls lined the hall to ask Tyra’s opinion on how to deal with being too fat, skinny, tall, weird, you name it they asked it, her response was the same to every single girl. OWN IT. If it makes you different it makes you special . All and all I was impressed with Tyra. You can see a little bit of Tyra here! Until next time, stay “fierce” readers.

Happy second day of school blog readers! Campus is buzzing with excitement and energy now that students are back on campus full time. As promised, I went to my first sesquicentennial event this past weekend: The football home opener. While this might not SEEM like a sesquicentennial event, it sure felt like one. NCC played Bethel College on a unseasonably warm Saturday evening. The stadium was filled with NCC students, family, and fans. It was a great event to be a part of, especially because NCC beat Bethel 70-26. It was nice to support the football team after they did such a great job helping the first year students move in last week. Good game guys!

Hello blog readers!  I hope that summer is wrapping up nicely for you all.  Here at North Central we are still a week or so away from moving students back on campus, but there is a definite feeling of excitement and anticipation for the upcoming year.  I think the feelings are heightened this year due to the fact that North Central is celebrating our sesquicentennial school year! (Say sesquicentennial five times fast…I can’t even type it!!)

To honor the past 150 years, North Central has created an exceptional lineup of special events, publications and projects over the course of the 2011-2012 year.  This year, I will dedicate at least one blog posting a month to a sesquicentennial event!  These events will be open to the community as well as the campus.

I hope you are as excited as I am to see what this year has in store for us.

My final gift to you is a link to a really cool video narrated by our own President of the College, Hal Wilde, about the history of North Central and my hometown…Naperville.

Yes, blog readers I am talking about North Central’s Campus Safety!  I recently had to do a project for my grad class (my last grad school project actually) and I chose to present on NCC’s Campus Safety.  I learned SO much.  Like all of our campus safety officers are CPR and AED certified.  They also improve their skills by taking as many NREMT classes as they can (NREMT is really high level emergency response training!)

Safety is something that North Central takes very seriously, and I think this is reflected in our Campus Safety office.  They do a great job working with the Naperville Police Department to make sure that NCC is a safe place to be.

I also learned that the Campus Safety office is the leading office on campus in terms of sustainability.  I think this is very cool.  Campus Safety has reduced their squad car emissions and they have incorporated more ‘green friendly’ means of transportation like segways and even an electric car!  This electric car only costs $1 to charge!  So not only are they out there keeping North Central a safe place, they are also working to save the planet.  Well Done Campus Safety, Well Done.

Howdy Readers!  Can you believe that August is right around the corner?  I can, I am ready for students to be back on campus and for Fall term to start.  I have even started a countdown to my favorite day of the year (outside of my birthday of course), MOVE IN DAY!  (For those of you who are curious, move in is 43 Days, 1050 Hours, ~63008 Minutes or ~ 3780475ish Seconds away…I take countdowns very seriously).

For those of you who excited to MOVE IN on MOVE IN DAY, it is never too early to start getting ready.  Start putting aside things that you will need in college but not at home, like your extra long twin bedding, or your backpack.  If you want to loft your bed, you can reserve you loft online now at bedloft.com (at bedloft.com you can also rent a fridge and microwave…but you don’t have to get these here).

Also, for those of you that are getting a laptop for school, you can start shopping around for deals now!  A word of advice, bring your acceptance letter or school ID with you when shopping, you might be able to get a student discount (it never hurts to ask!).

For those of you that have already attended your orientation session, there is a great list of essential, useful, and prohibited items on page 10 of the “Information Central” book.  If you don’t have this book and would like me to send you a list, you can e-mail me at aechubirka@noctrl.edu and I will send one to you!

I can’t wait to see you on campus this fall!

Ello Summer time!

I hope you blog readers have been well.  I know you have probably missed my witty prose these last two months but I had to take a hiatus from writing for awhile.  No, I didn’t break any fingers and was unable to type; the blogging software that we used was pounded by spammers.  So much so that I had to stop blogging because I was getting something like 5 comments a minute!  (And that is a lot of comments).

Never the less, I have been keeping myself busy in the admission office.  Yesterday we had our last June orientation program, and it was a big one.  For those of you that don’t know, NCC’s orientation program is a one day event where incoming students learn more about campus get their student ID and register for classes.  I remember my orientation…it was a great time!  I hope that these little ‘cardinal-ites’ will look back at their orientation just as fondly.

Other than the orientation programs, summer in the admission office is really quiet.  I am going to start planning my fall travel soon.  I think that I will go to Springfield again, maybe Champaign, oh and Lombard!  It is going to be great.  For those of you who want to meet your admission counselor at your high school, first find out would they are here, then e-mail them to see if they are going to visit your town!  We would love to hear from you!

Well that is all for today.  I hope that you all have a great summer!

From my new (old) desk in Old Main….Ashley…Out

P.S. Baby cardinals or Cardinal-ites are brown not red.  That is your Ornithology lesson for today!

Greetings blog readers!  I don’t know if you have figured this out about me, but I am a total nerd.  I was an English major in college I love to read and go to movies.  That being said, you can only image how “geeked out” I am about North Central’s newest traveling exhibit.  It is called “Harry Potter’s World: Renaissance Science, Magic and Medicine”.  For those of you who grew up reading the HP novels, I’m sure that you were awaiting your own ‘Owl’ letting you know that, you are in fact, a wizard or witch yourself!!  (Ok so maybe that was only me!)  But this exhibit takes many creatures, potions and themes from the Harry Potter books and shows the real history and science behind them!  For example, they go through the history of “herbology” (a class that Harry’s good friend Neville Longbottom excelled at).   The history of herbology dates back all the way to 1419!

This is something that my fellow HP enthusiasts (i.e. nerds) need to check out.  It will be on display in the North Central College’s Oesterle Library through May 21^st.  Check it out!!