An NIU professor is expected to propose a vision statement that would be more representative of the faculty than a previous version at today’s Faculty Senate meeting.

Geology professor Eugene Perry is scheduled to ask the senate to develop its own vision of the future and offer debate on the subject.

“I think the faculty provides a continuity that neither the students nor the administration has. By giving its own view, the faculty can challenge itself and by doing so make the university a stronger place,” Perry said.

In a memo to Faculty Senate President J. Carroll Moody, Perry said the vision statement as it stands has “fantasy” aims and a bureaucratic view of education.

“It is not surprising that the Brave New World message of the vision statement seems to produce acute depression and claustrophobia in 90 percent or so of exposed faculty,” Perry said. “As an antidote, I recommend that the Faculty Senate enunciate its own vision of the future.”

During the last meeting, senate member Jim Giles suggested the senate convey strong reservations concerning the present vision statement and the motion was seconded.

Members appeared to be of the consensus that the vision statement did little for NIU’s future as an institution of higher learning.

Perry’s memo calls for a vision statement addressing the needs for engaging students minds, filling the library with more books and journals and performing valuable research to improve the state of education for all residents of northern Illinois.

“The main concern was the vision statement didn’t have any vision. We were concerned about a statement that says what NIU can do in providing people with an exciting and useful education,” said sociology professor Eleanor Godfrey.

Norman Magden, a member of the committee that drafted the first vision statement, said there is always room for debate, and the original statement never was meant to be final.

“There was never any intention that it be the definitive statement, which was why we brought it to the senate,” Magden said.