Board Chair Cherilyn Murer challenged President John Peters and Provost Raymond Alden Thursday morning to update the university’s mission statement that will be later sent to the Board of Trustees for approval.

At the Board of Trustees Academic Affairs, Student Affairs and Personnel Committee meeting on Thursday, Murer said it is important for the mission statement to be updated in preparation for the Higher Learning Commission’s (HLC) site visit in spring 2014.

“We have not updated our mission statement since 1991, and obviously many things have happened since then,” Murer said.

Creating a new mission statement will also align with the university’s Vision 2020 initiative to achieve an enrollment figure of 30,000 students by 2020, Murer said.

“This is the time for us to sit back and reflect,” Murer said. “What is the mission of Northern Illinois University? How do we distinguish ourselves as a university from others? Where do we want to see the lifeblood of this university go in the next decade? This is an opportunity for us.”

Peters said he was excited about the challenge of redoing the mission statement, but if it isn’t done correctly, there will be consequences. The mission statement is something the HLC will look at when deciding whether to reaccredit the university.

“It’s appropriate that the trustees and Chair Murer are challenging us to focus on the mission because everything is going to flow from that,” Peters said. “We’ve been through at least four major planning efforts on this campus. We know what it is that we want to do. Now all we have to do is align our mission statement with that.”

The committee also approved the recommendation for a new P-20 Engagement Center that will replace the current facility, built for temporary purposes in 2006. The center works to develop partnerships in education and training between NIU and other schools.

At the Board of Trustees Finance, Facilities and Operations Committee meeting, a recommendation not to exceed $1.4 million for all long-distance and local calls from the university for five years was approved. A recommendation for $340,000 to be allocated for a 12-node computer cluster at the Northern Illinois Research Foundation was also approved.