NIU

The media's role in covering the race for the White House was discussed Tuesday night at Northern Illinois University. It's part of a series of speeches from national experts in the final weeks of the presidential race.

Northern Illinois University is rolling out changes to its late night ride service.  Until now, people could request rides from all over the DeKalb-Sycamore area.  But university officials say to prevent abuse of the service, they're setting up two sets of boundaries.  One of the zones mostly surrounds the campus area and will be available to anyone during normal hours of operation.  The other zone covers more ground, but will be limited to students, faculty and staff.  It will also have scaled back hours.

Burglaries on the Northern Illinois University campus doubled from 2010-2011 and drug referrals rose nearly 90% from the same period according to a campus security report issued this week.  The number of instances of aggravated assaults has fallen since 2009, but remain flat from 2010. This report includes statistics for the most recent three years containing reported crimes that occurred on campus and in property owned by NIU.  It also includes public property accessible from university property. 

The NIU School of Theatre and Dance opened its season this past weekend with an adaptation of a Herman Melville story. Bringing ‘Bartleby the Scrivener’ to the stage involved some unusual additions.

Northern Illinois University President John Peters has told members of the university's board of trustees that the state is once again behind on payments. 

More details are surfacing into the reasons two senior NIU administrators resigned in July for allegations of misconduct. John Gordon, director of the university's Convocation Center, allegedly had a university custodian go at least four times in the past year to his home to clean, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Northern Illinois University has confirmed the existence of an unauthorized bank account known as the "coffee fund" and taken steps toward potential discipline of four materials management employees.

NIU says records show the fund was used not for individual gain but for retirement celebrations, holiday parties and similar activities. However, the university says it is looking into whether this use of the fund violated university policy and/or state law.

New details have emerged regarding the recent departure of two administrators at Northern Illinois University. The school hired a Sycamore law firm to investigate unspecified allegations against the two employees. The findings were presented to the employees in July, shortly before they signed separation agreements.