Child literacy, safe therapy and life on other planets were topics of interest at Thursday’s board of trustees academic affairs, student affairs and personnel committee meeting.

The committee heard reports from faculty on the benefits of sabbatical leaves, which are awarded at the end of a faculty member’s sixth year for the purpose of supporting and encouraging scholarship, research and artistry, provost Ivan Legg said.

Sabbaticals are expected to strengthen the academic programs of the university.

Legg, a former chemistry professor, said he was “charged and excited” when he returned from his sabbatical.

Faculty members Chris Carger, Anna Beth Payne and Paul Stoddard provided testimonials to the board.

Carger, an associate professor in literacy education, took her sabbatical in the spring. She returned to the classroom in a Chicago neighborhood to work with children of Mexican descent.

She described a trend in education to believe that bilingual students can’t appreciate higher-level concepts. Carger found that they could.

NIU started a tutoring partnership with the school Carger worked with and students in one of the courses in the department of literacy.

Carger will present her research at December’s National Literacy Conference in Texas.

Payne, the associate director of counseling and student development, spent her sabbatical studying safety in relationships to better understand how to train psychology students. She explained that it’s difficult to develop an atmosphere of safety with victims and survivors of trauma and questioned how to make therapy safe for each client.

Stoddard is an associate professor in the department of geology and environmental sciences. He said he’s spent many of his academic years teaching and researching plate tectonics and the shifting of continental plates.

He took his sabbatical at Brown University to further his knowledge in plate tectonics, but instead, he found himself involved in studying raw data from space probes.

Stoddard said he was involved in trying to piece together the history of planets, searching for water on Mars, gauging the resource potential on Earth’s moon and studying the moons of Jupiter.

Stoddard said his experience inspired him to want to expand the planetary science courses here at NIU.

Committee chair Barbara Giorgi Vella said the committee will meet again in early March. The full board of trustees will convene to hear reports from the committees on Dec. 6.