The relaxing sounds of small water fountains are an ambient undertone that is reflective of NIU Ombudsman Tim Griffin in his office.

Students typically encounter the ombudsman when they are in need of assistance with university-related issues.

“I have always wanted a job that both allowed me to help people every day and work on a university campus,” Griffin said. “This job accomplishes both.”

The job of the ombudsman is to help people who have questions or concerns related to the university, Griffin said.

Griffin tells people how to resolve disputes in the least confrontational manner in an attempt to make everyone happy with the outcome, said Faculty Senate president Paul Stoddard.

“I think he really does serve as a pressure valve for many people,” Stoddard said.

Still, Griffin remains modest about his role.

“I have no formal or official role; I’m merely an adviser to any member of the campus community,” Griffin said. “I interact and learn about all aspects of the university.”

Griffin started working at NIU in August 1991. NIU is the eighth institution of higher education he has worked at, he said.

Outside of the workplace, Griffin is a daily practitioner of Tai Chi, he said. Griffin also teaches Tai Chi classes at Kishwaukee Community College. He has also been a musician since he was 14, he said.

“My earliest memories of playing music were in the dining room of the house in which I grew up, sitting at the piano and reaching up to reach the keys,” said Griffin, who was also a band and choir director at the high school level for five years prior to working in higher education.

Griffin also reads in depth about Eastern and Native American philosophies and spiritual approaches, he said.

“I have always been interested in comparative religion and spirituality,” Griffin said. “I have taught seminars for area churches on that topic.”

To pay for school, Griffin worked as a piano tuner and technician, a lumberjack, a short-order cook at an A&W Root Beer restaurant and pumped gas and did oil changes, he said.

“I remember coming across a rather large black bear one morning at dawn on my way into the woods to do my lumberjack job,” Griffin said. “That vision will always stick with me.”

Griffin’s personality makes him a unique individual to be around, said Bobbie Cesarek, associate athletics director of compliance.

“We’ve had a chance to know each other for quite awhile because he was a neighbor of mine when I lived in my old house,” Cesarek said. “[He has] a little bit of a dry sense of humor. Every once and a while he’ll throw something in and you have to be really listening to catch it.”