DeKALB – NIU hosted its first Create a Vision Board event of the new year. The event took place from noon to 2 p.m. Wednesday on the first floor of the Founders Memorial Library.
“We wanted to introduce students to some of the resources that we do have here. We have two academic coaches from the HASC (Huskie Academic Success Center) helping out,” said Associate Professor and Student Success Librarian Kimberly Shotick. “They can get to know students and talk about some of the resources that they offer and that the library offers.”
The event was coordinated by Shotick along with both Tori Smith and Tori McCulloh, academic coaches from the HASC, who helped run the event.
The event provided scrap paper, book covers, stickers, gems and more. Button-sized pins with inspirational quotes were also offered.
The process began with picking up a construction folder, which was the base of the vision boards. It could be decorated vertically, horizontally or unfolded.
The next step was picking out book covers, gems, colored scrap paper and other items students felt were needed to include for the 2026 year.
Lastly, students put it all together. The two creation tables pushed together were occupied with students busy cutting, ripping, gluing and taping pieces to their vision board. Some students colored in the empty background of their vision boards, while others used gems and stickers to fill in the blank space.
During the process of creating the vision boards, there were conversations between the students who participated and the students who were helping run the event.
Kayla Love, an undeclared first-year, loves the idea of vision boards and is happy to have the chance to do it so early in the year.
“I want my vision board to be the way that I would ideally have my year go, even if it doesn’t go this way to a T,” Love said. “I just want to be able to look at it and say ‘I did get a lot of this stuff done.’”
To others, the vision board creation was more than creating goals to complete in 2026. Students like Tre Meadows, a junior communications media studies major, expressed how the vision board is more about remembering old memories rather than creating new ones.
“I want an impact to remind me of how I overcame so many adversities. I have ‘rise’ on there because I rise through power, because I can rise over anything,” Meadows said. “I want to show that I can take those fears and turn them around.”
The next vision board event takes place from noon to 2 p.m. on Thursday on the first floor of the Founders Memorial Library.
