A consultant to NIU President Doug Baker showed the Student Association Senate how the university will change to attract and retain students at the Senate’s meeting Sunday.

Ron Walters, a consultant to Baker, presented the Master Plan Thesis, which outlines ways to reinvent NIU, and spoke with senators about other ideas the university administration has.

Some senators were concerned about how NIU could implement aspects of the plan — focusing on the money needed to finance campus improvements — but were supportive of the ideas.

“A lot of things coming up in the future [are] going to be very pertinent to the future of NIU,” said SA Senate Speaker Dillon Domke. “We are all going to be a part of it. We are going to carry out these plans and to make sure that the changes happen to better the university.”

Master Plan Thesis

The main goals for the Master Plan Thesis include adding activity and life to the campus, improving campus context, helping prioritize investment and creating places students can go, Walters said.

Walter said the plans will be challenged by NIU’s land availability — he said NIU can’t move parking lots to make buildings closer, even though administrators want the campus to be easier to navigate. He also said campus decisions are driven by funding and not need, which poses another difficulty when it comes to financing the projects.

A separate but related part of the Master Plan Thesis is the implementation of Eight Bold Ideas. That plan focuses on making NIU a campus where students can get to places within 10 minutes, establishing a defined quad, getting students to stay over the weekend and creating in alumni a desire to return to campus, among other things.

In addition to those goals, Walters said he wants to reclaim and beautify Watson Creek.

Four Pillars, Bold Workshops

Walters talked about how Baker’s four pillars have created a foundation to implement more projects around campus and said more Bold Futures workshops will soon be held.

“These pillars create [a] launching pad in which we can go off and do really exciting things,” Walters said.

The Bold Futures workshops, which were held in the fall, brought together students, faculty, staff and community members so they could talk about their ideas for NIU’s future. Walters said more sessions will be held after spring break. One is going to be a next-level session for those who have participated and another session will be for those who missed fall workshops.

Fall plans

Walters said NIU also had a number of projects that it hopes to complete or have started by the fall.

A number of the ideas stem from the Master Plan Thesis to change the campus’ layout and look: Walters said the university wants to plant 2,018 trees to honor the incoming freshman class, which will be the class of 2018. He also hopes to bring food trucks to the campus Friday and “line the spine” of the campus — X to Y — with tents and kiosks during the week, among other things.

The Huskie Bus routes may also be changed to help students, and Walters said Normal Road may be closed to cars in a test run to see if such a change would enable students to walk across campus more freely.

Senator concerns

The theme of the questions asked by the senators in response to Walters was if he knew where to get the funding for the plans.

Walters said the university will need to change how it spends its money to make the proposed plans a reality. Senator Brandon Phillips said he was concerned the goals were a “dream” because of what they could cost NIU.

Walters responded to Phillips’ concerns by saying that, just like how NIU is spending $22 million to remodel Grant, the university will need to spend a substantial amount of money on these new goals.

Walters said the SA can help define “what’s really important,” which will help NIU decide on which projects it should spend money.

“We are spending our money in a very different way and we need to be setting up our priorities,” Walters said. “So where the money is currently going we use for these plan[s].”

Other

Domke said Senator Deneisha Goolcharan has resigned as chairperson for the public affairs committee. Afreen Warsi will replace Goolcharan. Susan Richard was appointed election commissioner and Cherifat Nolla sergeant at arms.

Next week the Senate will vote on a resolution to establish the 2014 board of elections and a resolution that would urge the university to cancel a circus that is renting space in the Convocation Center for a March 4 performance.