The provost’s office this week will send a final draft of NIU’s annual academic plan, including research from the past year and goals for the future, to the Board of Regents in anticipation of the March board meeting.

NIU Provost Kendall Baker said, “The plan is an ongoing means we have of assessing the quality of the academic programs at NIU.”

He said the plan “consists of various components,” one of which is his academic priorities statement.

“The academic priorities statement is not necessarily a yearly thing. It is the result of a need I perceived last fall for the university to get a clear handle on where we are going in the future, academically,” he said.

The priorities statement includes discussions of undergraduate enrollment, minority access to NIU and faculty morale.

Baker said he spent most of the fall semester developing the statement and soliciting input from groups such as the University Council, Faculty Assembly and the Council on Instruction.

“NIU has had priorities statements in the past, but not as extensive as this one,” Baker said.

Lynne Waldeland, assistant acting provost for academic planning, said the plan also includes “mission statements” for both NIU and its separate colleges.

“We lay out our main goals and their places within the university,” she said. “The individual college statements include general aims and objectives for the future.”

Waldeland said the missions statements are periodically revised. She said the last major revisions occurred “two to three years ago.”

A schedule of new degrees which might be offered by NIU in the future also will be part of the plan, Waldeland said. She said possible new degree programs would be announced in April.

Baker said another area of research for the plan is the annual program review.

A selected group of programs is reviewed each fall for effectiveness, Baker said. He said the schedule of programs to be reviewed is made in advance with the Board of Regents.

The social science undergraduate and graduate programs of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences were reviewed this year, Waldeland said. She said this group included the schools of Economics, Anthropology, Political Science, Psychology, Geography and Sociology.

Waldeland said, “The various departments fill out forms which are reviewed by the Academic Planning Committee. The committee then meets with the colleges and faculty to help develop this paper.”

General statistical data from the past school year are included in the plan also, Waldeland said. “This helps us put our programs in a realistic context.”

Baker said the development of the plan is a “very elaborate process.”

He said research for the plan begins at the departmental level with individual departmental reviews. He said his staff meets with representatives from the departments and colleges, and the Academic Planning Committee reviews this work in the fall.

After finalization of the first draft form, the chancellor of the Regents and his staff conduct an examination. Baker said the Regents came to campus earlier this month to give their suggestions for changes in the document, but he said revisions were minimal.

“It’s a regular process every year, but it’s an excellent process,” Baker said.

Waldeland said the final draft of the plan will be sent to the Regents’ chancellor this week.

She said a 10-page “executive summary” of the 200 to 300-page plan will be compiled for the Regents’ Academic Affairs Committee meeting at NIU March 23. The entire Board of Regents will be able to review the final plan on March 24.

Baker said there is a strong relationship between the annual plan and academic planning.

“The whole point of getting our academic priorities laid out is to guide our budgeting. And the real question concerning budgets is determining what kinds of resources will be available to the university next year. It’s very difficult to make firm decisions about the availability of future resources,” he said.

He said the Illinois Board of Higher Education has submitted a “very good” budget for next year, but the state must find new resources to cover the priorities spelled out in the annual academic plan.