by Mark McGowan
NIU’s strategic planning process continues to gain focus and momentum.
Two task forces are working to create goals and initiatives related to curriculum innovation and student success. Authors of nearly 300 concept papers submitted last fall are invited to “thematic conversations” to narrow and enhance those topics.
Provost Ray Alden now has requested proposals, due April 4, for new initiatives for possible inclusion in the strategic plan. Alden soon will make a formal announcement about strategic initiative grants of between $5,000 and $20,000 that either fully implement modest proposals or fund demonstration projects that can serve as “proof of concept” or pilot projects.
And, beginning next week, all students, faculty and staff will have a two-week opportunity to complete a critical online survey about the NIU campus experience for students.
“These are exciting times for our university, and I’m so pleased by the participation Provost Alden and I have witnessed. As I reported in my State of the University Address last fall, we are thinking and conversing about our purpose, our strengths, our challenges and the needs of our global region,” President John Peters said.
“I’m confident that, as this work goes on, we will revolutionize the way we teach our students and the way we interact with our world,” Peters added. “The goals we set this year will guide us successfully through these coming years of rapid change and mounting expectations.”
“The success of our students is of paramount importance to NIU,” Alden wrote in his charge to the task forces. “We are concerned that our students succeed in graduating and moving on successfully along their career paths. Furthermore, we want our students to have an unsurpassed learning experience while attending NIU.”
The two task forces, led by David Changnon and Carolinda Douglass, have spent most of their meetings engaged in brainstorming as well as the collection of data.
But that’s about to change.
In April, both groups must present lists of strategic university goals to the president. Specific initiatives to accomplish these goals, and names of “champions” who will carry out those programs, also are expected.
Alden is impressed with Changnon and Douglass, who have met every other week with the provost to update him on the discussions.
“These were two task forces that President Peters and I decided on before he announced them in his State of the University Speech. We felt, obviously, that student success and curricular innovation are really at the heart of the university’s strategic imperatives,” Alden said.
“We thought that having a group of individuals from various perspectives come together and focus on these areas to come up with plans that address these university-wide initiatives was very appropriate,” Alden said. “We essentially want to see very impactful and transformational goals supported by strategies we can prioritize for support.”
Plenty of ideas already arrived in the form of last fall’s concept papers, dozens of which are being given to the task forces for review.
Many of the authors of the nearly 300 concept papers touch on certain themes. Some, such as curricular innovation and student success, speak to a campus-wide interest. Others, such as homeland security or museum studies, cross the borders of two or three colleges. Finally, some fall within one college.
Yet the authors come from different places and situations, bringing to the table unique ideas and multiple points of view.
The convergence of thoughts presents a special opportunity: What if the authors with similar ideas came together in one room simply to talk, to passionately explore words printed on papers until they become high-impact, transformational dreams within reach? What if they weaved some of their proposals together in ways that built on their strengths and imagined new collaborations and exciting possibilities? Could NIU capitalize on its intellectual energy and value to foster real progress in the way we teach, learn and discover?
A series of “Thematic Conversations” for the university-wide topics are being scheduled to allow that brainstorming. Faculty and staff who submitted papers, along with anyone else with interest, are encouraged to participate.
Deans of the appropriate colleges also will schedule and invite interested faculty to other conversations that touch on the multi-college topics brought up in the concept papers. Multidisciplinary topics involving a number of colleges include professional climate and faculty success, globalization, education, environment and energy, health and wellness and regional engagement.
Inter-collegiate topics involving two to three colleges include arts and humanities, ethics, homeland security, media studies, museum studies, nanotechnology and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) research.
Meanwhile, deans and university vice presidents will coordinate efforts regarding concepts that fall within a single college or unit. They will integrate the plans that arise with those coming from the larger themes to create comprehensive college strategic plans.
Not all the papers fit into a theme, of course, and other important issues were not addressed by the concept papers at all. A next stage of the strategic planning process will neither limit itself to the themes nor the participation of the paper authors. The college-level and university-level strategic plans that emerge will become “living documents” that will evolve over time.
For more information on NIU’s strategic planning, visit http://www.niu.edu/strategicplan/.
