Century's first decade full
of achievement, promise for NIU

President delivers sixth annual address

by Melanie Magara

NIU in the first decade of the new millennium is a stronger institution with greater promise than ever, according to President John Peters' ‘five years back, five years forward' view of the institution laid out last week in his annual State of the University Address.

Peters described NIU in 2005 as a university that has survived serious financial downturns and has stepped up efforts to become for self-supporting in an era of dwindling state appropriations. He stressed the need to concentrate on student retention and graduation, calling those issues “the heart of national debate on accountability in higher education.”

“Twenty-five years ago, when college was still considered optional and most college students came from more privileged backgrounds, a high ‘flunk-out rate' was considered a mark of institutional academic rigor,” Peters said.

“Today, with 85 percent of new jobs requiring some college education, graduation is a make-or-break imperative. It's not enough to simply provide access: we need to ensure success,” he added.

Peters praised recent efforts to enhance student success rates, including the new undergraduate advising center, an early alert program that identifies struggling students within the first few weeks of school, and stepped-up tutoring programs, including those at the newly opened Grant Towers tutoring center, dedicated last Friday.

The president told a near-capacity crowd in the Altgeld Hall Auditorium that, in spite of the worst financial crisis in NIU's history, his five-year presidency has seen the construction and/or remodeling of nearly 20 facilities – “more than some colleges have in their entire building inventory,” he noted.

More than half of Peter's speech was given over to acknowledgement of various academic achievements. His college-by-college review highlighted dozens of major accomplishments, including multi-million-dollar research grants, innovative new partnerships and numerous examples of strong external validation, such as national rankings and private donations to top programs.

The need to increase and enhance NIU partnerships was a consistent theme throughout Peters' 90-minute address.

The president reminded faculty and staff that emerging standards for accreditation and rankings – including those from the prestigious Carnegie Foundation – emphasize what he called “engagement,” or partnerships between the university and public schools, agencies, businesses, industry, health care and municipalities.

Early in his presidency, Peters said, he created the Division of Administration and Outreach to help identify emerging needs in the region and help the colleges meet those needs. He pointed to the success of NIU's P-20 (pre-school through graduate school) initiative, as well as involvement in Rockford's EIGERlab project, the neutron therapy program at Fermilab and Belvidere's Ag Tech Park as examples of ways in which NIU has “picked up the pace” in outreach and engagement over the past five years.

Other issues Peters addressed included:

• NIU's endowment: The NIU Foundation has raised more than $83 million over the past five years, increasing private giving in virtually every category. NIU's endowment has swelled from $3 million to $33 million in less than a decade – but Peters said that amount was still unacceptably low. “Endowments are institutional savings accounts,” Peters explained. “A university endowment is one of the most important indicators of institutional health, both because of what it supports and because of what it says about who supports the university.”
• External funding for research has skyrocketed in recent years, increasing from about $38 million per year when Peters took office in June 2000 to more than $61 million last year. The president gave special attention to a category of funding he called the institution's “federal agenda,” in which excellent programs are identified and given additional support with earmarked federal funds.
• New health-related initiatives offer tremendous growth potential, the president said. NIU has many strong health programs already, and the combination of existing health infrastructure and emerging health needs in the region presents numerous opportunities for the university.
• Efforts to make NIU more of a “green campus” have been successful. Energy-efficient vehicles, cost-cutting natural gas and electricity purchases, and performance contracts that reduce costs for many types of facility operations are saving NIU millions of dollars a year and “setting an example about responsible stewardship of our natural as well as financial resources.”

Peters said his vision for the future included a five-part identity for NIU:

NIU – The Sustainable University will invest in and nurture all its resources, be they human, financial or environmental. It will take a long-term view in all its decision-making, continually developing new sources of funding and fighting for better salaries and benefits for all employees.

NIU – The Engaged University will increase partnerships across the region, including those with community colleges. NIU will work hand-in-hand with organizations and governments throughout Illinois to build better schools, assist with land-use and transportation planning and transfer technology from labs to the marketplace.

NIU – The Global University will further internationalize its curriculum, and will encourage more NIU students to study abroad. Capitalizing on NIU's proximity to Chicago , the university will step up efforts to help the region become a bigger player in the new global economy.

NIU – The Responsive University will pursue new doctoral programs, create more multidisciplinary fields of study and research and continue to develop off-campus and on-line programs for place-bound students. Being responsive to current students means addressing concerns about housing, Peters said, and told the audience NIU is developing a long-range housing plan to be unveiled later this academic year.

NIU – The Accountable University will adopt and embrace “a shared, overarching culture based on student success.” In addition to improving student retention and graduation rates, NIU must continue to diversify faculty and staff and adopt more bilingual practices: “We must speak the language of our students,” Peters said, “and increasingly in our region, that language is Spanish.” Peters said NIU will not back down from its historic commitment to serve students from all backgrounds, including those who are academically under-prepared.

“When I came to NIU five years ago, I said we could be the nation's premier regional public university,” Peters said. “Looking at the last five years, there are many days I think I may have aimed too low. We are certainly the public university this region wants and needs.”

To see the entire text of the 2005 State of the University Address, or to watch an online video of the event, visit http://www.niu.edu/president/sofu2005.shtml.

10-10-05