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Baker Report: Bold Futures Workshops

September 25, 2013
Doug Baker

Doug Baker

Over the past three months, the NIU community – including alumni and ‘communiversity’ members – have been engaged in an intensive process of discovery that has generated greater awareness of the depth of NIU resources, many of which are not fully recognized within our NIU community.

It is also apparent that we have, for some time, faced significant student recruitment and retention challenges that require us to make bold strategic, structural, cultural and financial adjustments. This clearly points to a need for prudent, yet urgent, change.

Creating and implementing solutions to these issues while developing a true shared vision involves a broad set of perspectives within and external to NIU. Toward that end, I am scheduling a series of four-hour workshops on 10 different days in October.

Each workshop will provide information on NIU performance and established priorities and goals; align participants from across the university toward a common purpose; and assist in the formation of professional relationships across disciplines, job types and cultures. Our goal is to generate new ideas, to identify changes at NIU that can be achieved, and to encourage innovation and new ways of conducting the university’s business.

I’m asking campus leaders to identify people from each of our primary constituencies – students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members – to participate in these workshops. If you are interested in participating, please complete and submit this form by the end of the day tomorrow: Thursday, Sept. 26. Invitations with information on specific dates and times for the workshops will be sent out next week.

Toward Bold Futures,

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