DeKALB — The Strategic Planning Task Force, a group intended to put a plan of general direction for the university on paper, is currently in the process of formation.

The task force should begin meeting in November and will develop a first version of a university strategic plan. According to the ideal characteristics of members of the Strategic Planning Task Force guidelines, the university strategic plan “should serve as a ‘road map’ for the direction of NIU for the next five to 10 years. It should also present the institutional image and values of NIU to external constituencies.”

Provost Ray Alden, who is in charge of the task force and responsible for its creation, said when the task force finishes the final draft of the strategic plan, they will present it to the Board of Trustees.

“I have been involved in strategic planning for a number of years,” Alden said. “Particularly, this summer I spent a lot of time on the Web looking at other institutions and many of them do have the history of how they developed their strategic plans, and most of them come up with a planning council, a task force, a steering committee or something of that nature.”

According to the ideal characteristics of members of the Strategic Planning Task Force guidelines, the task force is currently seeking nominees with specific characteristics and perspectives, representative from various groups on campus. Such groups include, but aren’t limited to, all colleges at NIU, the University Libraries and the Dean’s Council.

“We’ve tried to go to the various constituencies and ask for them to provide the nominees,” Alden said. “We don’t want to make it a first-come, first-serve kind of issue.” He said the job of the task force is to put ideas for the strategic plan on paper and circulate those ideas so more people can add their input to the plan.

“There have been, in the past, other documents,” Alden said, “We have a mission statement, but that was probably 10 or 15 years ago that was developed, so that needs to be looked at and probably updated and polished a bit.”

Alden said the task force also intends to set strategic goals and specific objectives for what the university wants to accomplish over the next five to 10 years. Once the goals are established, the task force will develop an action plan to work toward the goals and then later assess progress to determine if the goals were reached.

“Your goals really reflect your values to the outside community, to potential students, to potential faculty recruits, to politicians, to the board of trustees,” Alden said. “It’s important to build that image of what we are, what we’re proud of and what we want to do in the next five to 10 years.”

Dan Stone is a Higher Education Beat Reporter for the Northern Star.