Northern’s Greek letter social fraternities and sororities were introduced primarily to provide smaller groups with a sense of personal identification within a growing and increasingly complex campus community.

While there had been service organizations with Greek names since the 1920s (e.g.,  Pleiades for women and the Cavaliers for men), the predecessors of today’s Greek system would not come into being for another twenty years.

The first national social sorority on campus was installed on April 29, 1944 as the Alpha Omicron chapter of Delta Sigma Epsilon. Thirty-five pledges comprised this pioneering group.

Three years later, Phi Sigma Epsilon became Northern’s first national social fraternity, installed on May 19, 1947.

Beginning in the 1950s, there was a rapid increase in Greek life membership – seven new sororities and fraternities were organized in 1955 alone. In 1959, six more were established.

These Greek organizations soon formed associations of presidents: The Panhellenic Council for women, and the Intrafraternity Council for men. 

The first Black Greek letter organization was organized in 1964 as the Epsilon Phi chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.  This opened the door for an additional eight organizations under the control of the National Panhellenic Council, or NPHC.

By the 1970s, Northern boasted 15 national and local sororities and 22 national and local fraternities – only a few less than the University of Illinois. Today, NIU has 44 social fraternities and sororities, with more than 1,600 members.

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Following the unexpected death of Karl Adams, Northern once again went to Illinois State University for a new president.

Leslie Holmes was a native of Freeport, Illinois who loved nature, studied both geology and geography, and did a stint as a Skelly Oil Company geologist before entering the teaching profession. At ISU he was a popular professor who regularly hosted field trips to Canada known as the “Red Bird Field Courses.” 

Holmes soon came to the attention of the ISU president, who made him one of his top assistants. It was from this position that Holmes was recruited to the Northern presidency.

Holmes was an unlikely candidate to preside over a period of time that could rightly be called the era of greatest change in Northern’s history. Somewhat shy and reserved, Holmes nonetheless earned a reputation as an able administrator who connected well with students. Like his predecessors, Holmes was personally conservative and religious – characteristics that would be sorely tested during the fast-changing period of his presidency. He initially shared his forebears’ belief in keeping Northern a single-purpose, teacher training school, but eventually Holmes recognized that public demand for a broader curriculum could not be denied.

As historian Earl Hayter puts it in his history of NIU’s first 75 years, “The key to the development of Northern from a small teachers college to a sprawling university during the 1950s and 1960s is found in the population explosion in the 21 northern counties of Illinois.”  From 1940 to 1950, 86 percent of the state’s considerable population growth was in the northern Illinois region.

During Holmes’ 18-year presidency (1949 – 1967), Northern enrollment grew from 2,000 to 18,000 students, and 29 new buildings were added. The introduction of advanced degrees at the masters and doctoral levels promoted Northern to university status during Holmes tenure. And among the accomplishments that gave scientist and outdoorsman Leslie Holmes the greatest satisfaction was the acquisition in 1951 of the 66-acre Lorado Taft Field Campus for outdoor education.

Holmes retired from NIU in 1967. While he intended to split his time between DeKalb and his summer home in Wisconsin, he ultimately accepted an offer to teach geography as a visiting professor at Arizona State University. Holmes died in Tempe, Arizona in August 1974, just three months after the governing board voted to name the Student Center after him.

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The impact of philanthropy at NIU may have begun with a shoebox.

Prior to World War Two, President Leslie Holmes kept a small amount of money in his office to help students and faculty with emergency loans. The source of the cash was interest on bequests from graduates over the years, and it had been accumulating since 1900. In 1916, the estate of alumnus Andrew Brown donated the university’s first major gift, and the principal grew to more than $30,000. 

Following the war, Holmes knew that another major gift would cause the box to overflow with earned interest – and indeed it did upon receipt of $5,000 from alumni and friends in the name of the late President Karl Adams. Other universities were establishing foundations to manage private giving, and Holmes became convinced that Northern needed to follow suit. 

On March 31, 1949, he and two other administrators signed articles of incorporation for the Northern Illinois State Teachers College Foundation. 

A little more than a decade later, the Foundation began its evolution from a recipient of gifts to a more strategic partnership with the university. The State had issued bonds to help universities across Illinois build new facilities for a rapidly-growing cohort of college-bound students. Unfortunately, that funding model did not provide money to furnish the buildings, and the university could not borrow cash to do so – but the private Foundation could. By buying the furnishings and leasing them to the university, crisis was averted – and the legislature approved repayment of that loan the following year.

Another major contribution of the early Foundation was the purchase of land surrounding the university. Many parcels along Normal Road, Lincoln Highway, Annie Glidden Road, Lucinda Avenue and the west campus were acquired through the Foundation, taking time-critical advantage of favorable pricing while waiting for state appropriations via a legislature that only met every other year.

While the early Foundation was able to assist the university with many strategic moves, its primary focus, then as now, was helping students pay for school. Early recipients of such financial assistance were required to sign a pledge saying that they did not drink or smoke and were “generally people of good character.” Such requirements were removed in the late 1960s, but the emphasis on student support endures. 

NIU Foundation fundraising activity reached nearly $22 million in FY19, including a multi-million-dollar pledge for scholarships.

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The beginnings of a graduate program, like other moves away from the single-purpose-teacher-preparation mission, was slow to take off at NISTC. Some discussion on the topic began in the Adams administration, but failed to generate action. World War II further delayed the initiative. Finally, in 1949, President Leslie Holmes appointed a steering committee to “set up the mechanics of getting a graduate program started.”

The State Teachers College Board, under which NISTC was still governed, had the following requirements: First, Northern needed a bigger library collection in each field in which graduate work was to be offered. Second, at least half of all faculty had to have doctoral degrees. Third, all courses had to be taught on campus; and fourth, the first graduate degree was to be a masters in education.

Having been assured that all those requirements had been or soon would be met, the board finally approved the M.S.Ed on January 22, 1951, and graduate courses were offered the next term by the departments of biological sciences, education, English, mathematics, physical sciences, social sciences, and speech.

The following year, 28 Masters of Science in Education degrees and certificates of advanced study were awarded. Today, NIU students can earn masters degrees in 73 different disciplines, and more than 4,000 students are enrolled in graduate programs.

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At the end of WWII, veterans flooded college campuses like NISTC. In 1946, enrollment jumped to 901 men and 541 women, more than half of whom had served in the war. With no dedicated campus living space for men, veterans and faculty joined forces to find space for male students to live in DeKalb. Beyond that, the college established a number of makeshift quarters, including cots and bunk beds in the Still Hall gymnasium, the top floor of the Science Building, and in surplus barracks borrowed from an Army base in Wisconsin.

President Adams made the construction of additional dormitories a top priority in his post-War plans, but legislative support was slow in coming. A new women’s dorm (later named Adams Hall) was opened in 1949, but it took three more years to receive funding and construct the first such facility for men.

In 1951, Gilbert Hall was opened as an all-male dormitory with capacity for 374 men. Named for DeKalb’s first superintendent of schools, Newell D. Gilbert, the new dorm had the advantage of overlooking Glidden Field, the school’s original football field on the land now occupied by the Music and Art buildings.   Gilbert remained a popular living space for several decades, particularly preferred by students with classes on the east side of campus. While it was decommissioned as a residence hall in the 1990s and used as administrative “swing space” during the remodeling of Altgeld Hall, Gilbert was eventually renovated and reopened as a co-ed dorm in 2013.

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During the summer of 1898, noted American sculptor Lorado Taft and a small group of artists, architects and scholars established a summer retreat on the estate of a wealthy Chicago arts patron as a place to work, exchange ideas and social in peaceful isolation away from the city.

Located on a scenic bluff overlooking the Rock River, this enclave became known as the Eagle’s Nest Art Colony, and it flourished until the death of its last original member in 1942.

Almost immediately upon his arrival at Northern, President Leslie Holmes began lobbying the legislature to acquire the property. Holmes was an avid outdoorsman himself, and he believed strongly in the value of outdoor education.

In 1951, Northern acquired a portion of the estate including heavily wooded areas, open fields, ravines and the site of the original art colony to establish the Lorado Taft Field Campus. Initially it offered Northern students exposure to outdoor teaching methods; later, the College of Education developed a Master’s degree in Outdoor Teacher Education. Over time public schools in the region were given the opportunity to bring children to Lorado Taft, and the campus evolved into the outdoor education and conference center it is today.

The Taft campus has expanded from the original 66 acres to 141 acres with team courses, campfire rings and other outdoor gathering areas, sports fields and hiking trails through wooded and open areas and over a variety of terrain. The 15 buildings include a science lab, dining hall, dormitories, classrooms, meeting and conference rooms, staff residences and offices, and a maintenance shop.

Three buildings date back to the early days of the art colony and are more than 100 years old. Several sculptures by Lorado Taft remain on the grounds, and Taft’s 60-foot tall sculpture of the Eternal Indian (popularly if incorrectly known as Blackhawk) overlooks the Rock River a few hundred feet from the campus in adjacent Lowden State Park. Today, the Taft campus provides resident outdoor education programs to more than 6,000 elementary and middle-school students each year, as well as dozens of outside groups seeking a pastoral setting for conferences, workshops and retreats.

Read NIU Alum Mark Schwendau’s feature article about the Eagle’s Nest Art Colony at Lorado Taft.

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The move toward a full-fledged graduate program at Northern was slow, but once it took off, it met with great enthusiasm from faculty and prospective graduate students.

In November of 1949, President Leslie Holmes appointed a steering committee to work with colleagues at other Illinois public institutions to ensure coordination of expanded graduate offerings. At the same time, the Teachers College Board established guidelines for Northern in the areas of faculty qualifications, library holdings, location of classes and degrees that could be offered.

In 1951, the Board gave Northern permission to offer graduate courses. The following year, Dr. J. Robert Hainds was appointed as the first Dean of the Graduate School. By 1960, 23 departments were offering graduate courses leading to the master’s degree.

From 1960 to 1970, graduate student enrollment increased from 1,300 to more than 5,000.

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In September of 1945, Senator J. William Fulbright introduced a bill in Congress that called for the use of proceeds from the sales of surplus war property to fund “the promotion of international goodwill through the exchange of scholars” in the fields of education, culture and science. One year later, President Harry S. Truman signed the Fulbright Act into law.

The first Fulbright scholar from Northern was historian David Wagner who spent the 1952-53 school year teaching and conducting research in Italy. Over the next 60+ years, some 130 Northern faculty have been chosen for this honor in 163 separate placements. In 1983, NIU ranked 17^th in the nation in the number of Fulbright awards, ahead of the University of Illinois, Northwestern and the University of Chicago.

Since its inception, the Fulbright program has broadened its funding to include an annual appropriation from Congress, and expanded its initiatives to include various student exchange programs. Some 35 NIU students have received Fulbright scholarships to study abroad. 

See a full list of NIU’s Faculty Fulbright Scholars

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