About Our Faculty
More than a century past the careful selection of the university’s first faculty – those dozen educators included future building-name honorees Newell Gilbert, Charles McMurry and Swen Parson – NIU’s faculty has grown 100 times over.
NIU is now home to nearly 1,200 faculty.
They are world-class and often world-renowned teachers and researchers, artists and scientists. They publish articles, edit journals, write books and produce films. They guide students on adventures in the classroom and around the world, engaging them in the practice of asking questions, searching for answers, analyzing data and documenting results.
Many are at the top of their professions, holding key leadership positions on state, national and global professional organizations. Several are honored each year for their teaching, which includes awards from undergraduate students, and for their research.
Eighty percent of NIU’s full-time faculty hold doctoral or terminal degrees in their fields. The student to faculty ratio at NIU is about 18 to 1. NIU’s faculty also share in the university’s governance.
Chhiu-Tsu Lin
Heide Fehrenbach
Reed Scherer