CHICAGO – Despite more than a year of work and a pair of community forums this week about the looming strategic plan, Northwestern administrators are not yet ready to release specific details about what they’ve come up with.
While Monday’s forum at the downtown campus was billed as an opportunity to describe the strategic planning committee’s latest “draft,” University President Morton Schapiro called it a “living document” and Provost Dan Linzer said the actual draft is not being released at this time, because they do not want their “framework” of ideas confused with expectations.
“This is still a draft; it’s a working document, so we’re changing it all the time,” Linzer told the crowd of roughly 100 NU faculty, staff and students. “We’re not sharing this with The Daily or the broader community right now who want to come and talk about it, because we’re not set on all the things that we’re going to put into the final plan.”
Committee members hope to compose a completed draft by December break. The finalized plan, which will outline the administration’s next capital campaign and set the tone for the University for the next decade, is set to be released at the start of the 2011-2012 academic year.
So far this fall, the administration has met separately with staff members, student leaders and members of the General Faculty Committee to get feedback on the common themes and priorities identified over the summer by seven different workgroups.
Monday was the first public assembly, one of two days of community forums geared toward updating community members on what stage the plan is currently in and collecting their comments for further revisions. There will be another forum Tuesday from 9-11 a.m. on the Evanston campus at the James L. Allen Center’s Tribune Auditorium.
Discussion on Monday centered around four areas: differentiating NU from its peers, empowering members of the University community, becoming more engaged globally and innovating the learning environment to create more collaboration among schools.
As the University prepares to top 30,000 undergraduate applications this year – breaking last year’s record-setting 27,615 – Linzer said it’s more important than ever to make NU stand out.
“What are the themes that connect across all the schools and make a Northwestern experience different from another university, and how do we invest in that?” Linzer asked.
Although he did not cite any numbers for how the University would budget its priorities, he did address the question of investments more specifically throughout the presentation.
The draft distinguishes between developing new “areas of excellence” and supporting existing programs in which the University excels – nanoscience, the performing arts, writing and oral expression and biosciences and medicine, according to a PowerPoint slideshow presented by Linzer.
Some of the potential new areas that Linzer said have attracted considerable student attention include energy and sustainability, new media and technology, design, global health and leadership, and public policy.
He also addressed student concerns related to the advising and mentoring programs on campus. In revamping them, Linzer said the goal would be helping students plan their schedules more holistically so they’re better prepared to participate in programs such as study abroad.
“Students feel varying degrees of uncertainty about their education until literally the period in which they graduate,” Linzer said.
One example of how the University is working to solve that problem is the modular curriculum the School of Communication began offering this quarter, which gives underclassmen a more rigid path toward programs at higher levels.
Building a new campus center came up briefly in one section of the draft about creating more on campus spaces where students can interact informally. However, Linzer said there may be other, more effective options for getting students to use those areas.
As far as increasing its global reputation, there was quick mention from an audience member of using the Qatar campus as a way of planting new campuses in China and India.
Schapiro, who took a trip to India last year and spent a significant part of his summer traveling in Asia, answered from the front row.
“You want to make sure if we’re going to have our name out there that we’re going to protect the value of the brand, and we’re really going to deliver,” Schapiro said. “I don’t think I’d want to be the first one in there.”
While the forum featured more presentation from Linzer than questions from the audience, administrators indicated they were happy with the feedback they received. More input is expected at the Evanston forum Tuesday.
