Linze Griebenow

Assistant Day Editor

NIU President John Peters’ “Vision 2020” wasn’t quite planned using 20/20 vision.

With recruitment steadily decreasing, soliciting students to attend NIU is part and partial to the “Vision’s” success.

Many current students consider it common knowledge that it’s nearly impossible to graduate as planned at NIU, what with failing transparency, communication and an abundance of red tape wrapped around the various advisors students are responsible for organizing.

The myth of DeKalb’s ever-climbing level of violence does nothing to add to NIU’s numbers, either.

If Peters and the university truly believe they will accomplish the goals of “Vision 2020,” they need to critically re-evaluate the reality of a decrease in Monetary Award Program (MAP) grants, increasing tuition and seriously acknowledge non-student athletes.

Until then, it’s a pretty rose-colored “Vision.”

Dan Martynowicz

Columnist

Encourage Community Investment.

The Greeks at NIU got it right with “NIU Cares Day.” However, it’s only one day a year. Instituting a program to actively encourage volunteer efforts by students and staff would increase student involvement and investment in the university. From personal experience, I can say that involvement in the community and university increases commitment, happiness and student GPA.

This program would also increase a feeling of camaraderie among students, uplift the community as a whole and bring together the various social and economic classes present in NIU’s surrounding area.

Taurean Small

Columnist

Eight years from now, NIU just might see about 30,000 students on this campus. We have the potential, but are we taking the right steps to get there? While new infrastructure may be a good start, we need to improve the quality of staff teaching in these buildings first.

While we have many highly accomplished scholars and professionals in our professorial staff, there are many under-enthused staff that, to be quite frank, shouldn’t be here. From unmotivated lectures, to PowerPoint presentations that were copied and pasted from the web, I’ve had my share of less-than-competent teachers.

We should dedicate more effort to looking for a staff that best exemplifies NIU’s passion for academia.