Frank Nowik, a vital and important member of NIU and the DeKalb community, will be retiring on the first day of February this year.

Nowik, a long-time employee of NIU, has most recently served as the assistant provost for NIU’s personnel department.

Nowik, who has been at NIU for thirty years, will be honored at a retirement reception on Tuesday, Jan. 29th, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. The reception will take place in the University Suite of the Holmes Student Center.

Nowik, 58, came to NIU in 1961 as a management instructor from La Salle-Peru Junior College in Peru, Ill.

Nowik spent two years as acting chair of the management department at the NIU College of Business, and later served the college as assistant dean. He also was the faculty adviser to the Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity.

Nowik’s community involvement included serving on the Malta School Board for twenty years. He was president of the board for seven of those years.

Nowik is currently the vice president of the school district foundation, and has also served two years as president of the Northwest Illinois Education Association.

He has taught throughout his years at NIU and said he enjoys the teacher-student contact of education.

Nowik said the most fulfilling part of his career at NIU was teaching. However, the role of assistant provost also was interesting, he said.

“They’ve all been rather satisfying roles, but one always hates to leave the classroom of a university,” he said.

Nowik said he is pleased to see emphasis being placed on instruction at the undergraduate level at major colleges.

“Educational institutions must find their role and priority in society … I think that Northern has really struggled in finding it’s niche, but that we’re on the right track.” Nowik said.

Nowik plans to rest for a few months before exploring other professional possibilities.

Nowik earned both a bachelor’s degree in accounting and a law degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Nowik holds a master’s and a doctorate degree from the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley, Colo.