DeKALB – NIU’s $32 million deficit and ways to decrease the deficit were again the topic of discussion at Wednesday’s University Council meeting.
NIU President Lisa Freeman’s announcements contained a presentation about the 2025 university goals, which were based on three core themes: empowerment and shared responsibility; student recruitment, success and experience; and resource development and fiscal responsibility.
Freeman explained how NIU comes up with its university goals each year.
“Every year, I discuss with the trustees, based on what I’ve heard from members across the campus community, what we’ve done well in the previous year, the progress that we’ve made, where we’ve hit our benchmarks and where we still have work to do, and then that is communicated to the public in a letter that I write on behalf of the university to the trustees and a memo that the trustees sent back to me, and that is going to be presented tomorrow (Thursday) at the Board of Trustees meeting,” Freeman said.
Freeman also discussed NIU is looking to increase the Huskie Pledge program once again. The Huskie Pledge program is where based on income and specific eligibility requirements, first-year students can have their first-year tuition and general fees completely covered through the Huskie Pledge grant, according to the NIU website. For the 2024-2025 school year, the requirements for Huskie Pledge were raised from having an income at or below $75,000 to having an income at or below $100,000.
Freeman said raising the Huskie Pledge program will be a way of utilizing resources with NIU’s returns in mind.
The 2025 university goals will be presented at the Dec. 12 Board of Trustees meeting and will play an important part in the State of the University address, which will occur Jan. 21.
BUDGET AND PLANNING UPDATE
Freeman, in coordination with Laurie Elish-Piper, executive vice president and provost, and George Middlemist, chief financial officer, provided an update on NIU’s deficit and the specific ways NIU is attempting to decrease the deficit.
Freeman talked about how her goal for NIU’s deficit is to improve beyond temporary fixes.
“I think we’re all exhausted of temporary fixes that don’t get us to a sustainable state. And so my goal for the university is that we do things that help us get to a state that’s sustainable, and we do things in a way that puts students at the center, recognizes the value of employees and our ability to be those effective and ethical leaders and to be innovative and think of new things,” Freeman said.
In addition to reducing low enrollment courses and thinking of ways NIU can reduce extra help, additional pay and overtimes, NIU also has plans to reduce curricular complexity.
“It (reducing curricular complexity) allows us to really, you know, eliminate, maybe, some of those classes that aren’t necessarily needed, or combine courses that are duplicative of one another or crosses them,” Elish-Piper said. “Assess whether our prerequisites are the right ones, assess whether our specializations or our tracks or our minors are of enough interest to be able to continue offering those, but also within reducing curricular complexity, thinking about making the pathway more streamlined for our students. And so giving our students some choices, but not making our pathway so confusing that we derail students, or that we send them off on a path that is not necessarily the most expeditious and the most streamlined and the most purposeful.”
The last University Council meeting of the fall 2024 semester will occur at 3 p.m. Dec. 4 in Altgeld Hall Room 315. Agendas are available prior to each meeting on the NIU website.
