The process for admissions was cleared up for the Faculty Senate at its meeting Wednesday afternoon, and the Student Association announced that it will form focus groups.

Admissions and Retention

Eric Weldy, Student Affairs and Enrollment Management vice president, gave a presentation detailing the “enrollment funnel” process NIU uses to generate applicants. He also discussed the standards set by faculty for accepting students.

Faculty Senate President Alan Rosenbaum said the faculty had questions regarding whether these standards, like high school GPA requirements, were being followed properly, especially considering NIU’s retention concerns. According to Weldy’s presentation, the demographics have not changed significantly over recent years, although he mentioned isolated occasions of inconsistency.

“If we have certain policies, they’re no good if we don’t enact them,” Weldy said.

Weldy’s presentation also addressed the low retention rates; Weldy said last year, NIU lost 1,001 students — 335 of them seniors — considered to be in good academic standing. Weldy also said plans are being made to facilitate retention, like increasing the amount of transfer and four-year scholarships. Rosenbaum suggested reaching out to students who leave and getting their side of the story.

“It might not necessarily answer all of our questions, but we can certainly ask them,” Rosenbaum said, “Either it isn’t being done or we don’t know if it’s being done, but regardless it makes sense to try and find out.”

Student Association

Rebecca Clark, SA director of Governmental & Academic Affairs and senior marketing major, reported that Tuesday’s football game will be Greek Night as well as a blackout game.

The SA has also begun forming working groups and committees to allow tighter focus in a variety of areas.

“Mine, for example, is external outreach,” Clark said. “My group will be trying to match inside organizations, like clubs and teams, to outside organizations in DeKalb, like Feed’em Soup, so they can collaborate.”

The SA will host a Meet the Police Chief night from 5 to 7 p.m. Dec. 2. Students can use the event to get acquainted with NIU’s police chief, Tom Phillips, in a casual setting.

“A few weeks ago he had spoken to the student senators, and it had come about that not many students had met him,” Clark said. “This way we can show him that we’re a one, huge Huskie family, and we want him to feel welcome.”