“What is Northeastern’s brand?” Dean Murrell Duster from the Office of Academic Advising wondered aloud to an overcrowded audience. “What makes our students and graduates unique?”
Before taking her seat and re-opening the floor, Duster announced to the forum President’s Task Force on the Millennium Student that the typical NEIU student today is far different than “the [type of] student we had 25 years ago.” The crowd nodded in agreement.
Outgoing President Salme Steinberg organized the task force, which took place on Jan. 16. This was the first of many such proposed open-forums. The initial goal of the long-term Millennium Student project is to form subcommittees that will address how the administration can better serve the ever-evolving needs of the student body.
Sociology Professor Dr. Barbara Scott and Senior Executive Director of Outreach Santos Rivera currently chair the current exploratory phase of the project. Scott and Rivera plan to carefully categorize the concerns of students, faculty, and staff, in hopes of better understanding Northeastern’s weak points when it comes to graduation, retention rates, alumni success, and consumer satisfaction.
Once these concerns are logged, they plan to report back to the president and assign various action groups to address university problems.
Many attendees agreed on one overarching category of disenchantment. Students feel that they are not being efficiently guided through the academic process.
Duster said that while NEIU’s motto stresses excellence and success, “these elements often contradict one another in the reality of many students’ experiences.” Duster asked, “[Are] students being required to fulfill requirements that are too difficult? Are standards more lax than they need to be based on perceived categorical handicaps? Is the ‘run-around’ involved in obtaining necessary classes a hindrance to all the motto promises?”
Provost Lawrence Frank cited an example of perceived run-around in the College of Education, where students are required to pass the English Competency Exam (ECE) to be awarded acceptance into the program.
Many students are not made aware of this until trying to declare their major, therefore they are often set back a semester due to the long grading period required for the ECE.
Frank said that as NEIU evolves, “we should think not only of our [educational] requirements but of the substance of these requirements. … Are there things that we’re asking students to do that they might not need to do?”
Frank went on to suggest to attendees that students who throw in the towel due to ever-moving goal posts and unclear expectations might affect NEIU’s low graduation rates.
Others concurred that such run-arounds existed in their departments and proposed that the school may need stricter, more frequent student advisement in the future. It was noted that more sections of required classes should be available every semester.
Second to run-around, concerns about meeting the needs of NEIU’s expansive diversity were raised repeatedly. Many are worried that NEIU is not fully succeeding in reaching out to minority, English as a second language, and foreign students. Maria Chaves, a Que Ondee Sola contributor, suggested that the school erect a Latino cultural center.
In response, chairman Scott told her to “Please think about this as a campus-wide project. We cannot have centers act in a divisive way.” Scott continued that with the deep diversity of the school, fairness would dictate that we build “12,000” cultural centers, a gesture of misguided “unity” that does not make sense.
Other concerns included job preparation and placement, differing generational definitions of the word “success,” a lack of outside advertisement and sub-par public relations, a “dummied-down” curriculum, unsatisfactory cooperation with Chicago Public Schools, insufficient childcare, and poor accessibility of information regarding scholarships, grants and tuition wavers.
As a minority and non-traditional student-aimed institution, the administration feels that they need to broaden their understanding of today’s college student.
“Northeastern fares better than most universities in the state [in terms of minority / non-traditional education],” said Dr. Santos Rivera, “but when you measure it in relationship to our population, it doesn’t add up.\
In order to strengthen unity and add the fire back into the NEIU motto, the President’s Task Force on the Millennium Student hopes to bridge gaps in communication between and among faculty, staff and students. ‘Very often the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing,’ said Brown. “We have to identify what groups across campus are doing, and attempt to unite them.”
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