Peters e-mails campus on state budget,
capital campaign, strategic planning group

NIU President John G. Peters sent the following letter to the campus community March 27.

Dear Colleagues,

Spring is a time of renewed optimism and heightened expectations for what lies ahead. With that in mind, I want to bring you up to date on the university's FY08 budget allocation in Springfield, Foundation fund-raising initiatives, Provost Alden's Strategic Planning Process and summer work hours.

This year, the governor presented a budget to the legislature calling for a 1.9 percent increase in general revenue funding for public universities, which represents an increase of approximately $2 million for NIU. If approved, this would be the second straight increase, reversing a period of flat or declining appropriations.

In addition, the governor is proposing a capital budget that includes $19 million in funding for the long-awaited renovation of the Stevens Building, home to our theater, dance and anthropology programs. This has been at the top of our improvement requests for more than a decade, and we are hopeful that it will remain on the state's priority list at the conclusion of the current legislative session.

While the budget will be the topic of much debate in the weeks ahead, and nothing is yet written in stone, this initial proposal gives hope that higher education will continue its slow but steady recovery from the funding cuts of recent years.

Of course, memories of those cuts remind us that in this day and age we must always look for new sources of funding for the university. Along those lines, I am excited and pleased to announce that the NIU Foundation will soon move into the public phase of the first official capital campaign in university history.

In reality, this campaign has been under way for the last five years, raising $106 million in what is commonly referred to as "the quiet phase" of such endeavors. On May 5, the time for being quiet will end, and the Foundation will begin the push toward the ultimate goal of increasing the total of money raised to at least $150 million for the improvement of academic programs, scholarships, endowed professorships and facilities at the university. The Board of Trustees gave its unanimous support to that campaign at its Thursday, March 22, meeting, and we all look forward with great excitement to seeing this venture through to successful conclusion.

The board received more good news from the Foundation at that meeting with the announcement of the largest endowment gift in university history: a $2 million pledge to establish an endowed dean's chair in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The gift came from longtime friends of the university, Ray Smerge and his wife, Patricia. This generous gift makes the ongoing search for a new dean of LA&S even more exciting, and details about both will be forthcoming in the days ahead. We are most grateful to the Smerges for their generosity, and look forward to the many possibilities this gift creates for the college.

In keeping with the theme of optimism and rising expectations, I would be remiss if I did not say a word or two about the ongoing strategic planning process.

Under the leadership of Provost Ray Alden, the Strategic Planning Task Force has been hard at work since November. The task force has been meeting in planning groups and committees working toward a May deadline to produce a blueprint that will guide university academic growth and development for the next decade.

That plan will raise the academic bar for our institution as we move forward. While some might view this prospect as daunting, I choose to see it as an exciting and optimistic statement of our determination to continue meeting the ever-changing needs of the region we serve. I hope all of you share my sentiment.

If all of those things aren't enough to get you excited about the spring and summer months ahead, I also would like to take this opportunity to officially announce an extension of our four-day summer work week for 2007. Since its inception five years ago, that practice has saved NIU more than $3 million. While the funding climate in Springfield appears to be improving, it is only prudent to continue reaping the benefits of such cost-cutting measures.

As always, I am tremendously proud of NIU and its people. I pledge to keep you informed about our budget process as it unfolds, and to keep your interests in mind at all times. Thank you for your time and attention and for the dedication you routinely show in service to our students, our university and our region.

Sincerely,

John G. Peters
President