DeKALB | The NIU Strategic Planning Task Force is waist-deep in work.

The Strategic Planning Task Force is a group of 43 people intended to put a plan of general direction for the university on paper that has been working towards several revision objectives since November.

“Any time you have [a] committee or a group as large as some of these groups have been, you could just become stalemated and not get anyone to agree on anything, but that hasn’t been the case,” Ray Alden, NIU executive vice president and provost, said.

Alden says he is happy with the progress the SPTF has made. Before classes started in January, the SPTF had a major round-table event where members discussed the direction of the university and separated into four groups. Those groups will devote the next two months to reach the goals determined by the SPTF as a whole.

Alden said the different groups engage in weekly meetings. Alden said every third week, external experts from The Learning Alliance for Higher Education come to compare notes, identify cross-collaboration between groups and help to ensure the groups are staying on target.

According to The Learning Alliance, it is “the first, just-in-time provider of strategic expertise to college and university leaders.”

Alden said there is a high amount of interest in the meetings.

“We have had a fairly short period of time to work on this, and yet I don’t think we’ve had a meeting yet where more than one or two people on the task force were not there,” he said.

Task force members have a variety of reasons for joining.

“I think NIU is at a crossroads and could go three different ways,” said Paul Stoddard, Faculty Senate president and SPTF member. “I think this is a good time to give input into what direction Northern ends up taking.”

Also, task force members were selected to bring different ideas to the table.

“I think it’s very important that this university has a more coordinated approach to planning, policy making and decision making about resources,” said Diana Swanson, associate professor of women’s studies and SPTF member.

Alden said he hopes to have final documents drawn by the end of March or early April. By June, Alden said the SPTF should have a completed revision to the University Mission Statement.

The first group is devoted to developing the learning environment at NIU, Alden said. The group will make sure NIU maintains a culture where undergraduate eduction is a top priority.

“We don’t want to go down the path of some research universities where active researchers never see undergraduates,” Alden said.

Alden said the second group deals with research areas NIU will be known for in the future.

The third group deals with NIU’s relationship with the region and relations between NIU and national labs like Fermilab, and NIU’s involvement with private development, for a few examples, Alden said

“The fourth area is the NIU community,” Alden said. “How do we identify issues with students, staff [or] faculty and how do we recruit, support, retain and enhance all the components of the university community by making the culture on campus the best it can be.”

Alden said the biggest hurdles the SPTF has had to overcome have involved issues of defining what the groups are actually working on.