Correction: This piece was updated at 2:34 p.m. Monday Sept. 16, to remove incorrect information regarding the host of the event on Oct. 24. The event will be hosted by the Coalition for Transforming Higher Education Funding, not the Partnership for College Completion.
DeKALB – NIU President Lisa Freeman announced Wednesday that 10-day enrollment numbers will be released Thursday. NIU has also partnered with JED Campus as part of NIU’s strategic plan for health and wellbeing.
University Council had their first meeting of the 2024-2025 academic year at 3 p.m. Wednesday in Altgeld Hall Room 315.
President Freeman touched on the FAFSA challenges brought by delayed FAFSA packages to students in relation to enrollment for the fall 2024 semester.
“I’m really pleased to share today that despite all of the challenges with FAFSA, the impact of FAFSA was detectable, but not devastating,” Freeman said. “Our total enrollment held essentially steady. The negative results of the FAFSA fiasco were most pronounced for new high school graduates from Illinois’s most vulnerable communities, low income communities, marginalized communities, city of Chicago communities, but fortunately for us, in terms of the prospect work, total enrollment and decrease in new freshmen enrollment, which was a little less than 10% was offset by an increase in the number of new transfers, which was a little more than 10%.”
President Freeman said NIU is operating at only receiving 55% of what it needs to effectively serve students.
“NIU is found to be operating at only 55% of adequacy, meaning that we receive only a little more than half of what we need to operate and serve students effectively. So I mean, these are sobering findings that really speak to the need for advocacy for public higher education funding,” Freeman said.
From 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Oct. 24 in the Barsema Alumni Visitor Center, the advocacy group Partnership for College Completion will be hosting a community conversation on equitable funding in Illinois.
The Partnership for College Completion advocacy group advances solutions that address historic inequities in higher education, according to their website.
Clint-Michael Reneau, vice president for student affairs, gave a presentation about NIU’s strategic plan for health and wellbeing.
NIU has partnered with JED Campus, which guides schools through systems, programs and policy development to increase and improve student mental health, substance use and suicide prevention efforts.
Reneau said NIU has created a unified peer education mentor training.
“We created a unified peer education mentor training, where we trained the leading peer mentors from across campus using an equity mindset, using a growth mindset, and thinking around how to support students who are struggling and thinking about how to support, enhance and expand what we do to support students,” Reneau said.
The next University Council meeting will occur at 3 p.m. Oct. 9 in Altgeld Hall Room 315.
