Bergland

There is a new spirit and a new attitude at IU Northwest—a renewed excitement among our students and faculty—which extends to our many other constituencies as well. We are building on our academic strengths, pursuing excellence in everything we do and solidifying IU Northwest’s role as a leader in northwest Indiana.

As we enter the fifth year of our “Shared Vision,” a vision that presents a word picture of the kind of institution we are striving to create at IU Northwest, we have developed two critical areas of focus for our efforts. These areas include developing a unique identity for our institution and enhancing the campus climate in such a way as to provide more support for our students and faculty in the learning process.

IU Northwest’s unique identity will be built around our commitment to sustainable regional vitality, and cultural discovery and learning. These two broad areas of excellence are those for which we plan to be known as we build academic strength.

I am very pleased to announce that we have moved closer to defining our unique identity with the development of the Center for Sustainable Regional Vitality and the Center for Cultural Discovery and Learning.

Both centers have been designed as faculty-driven initiatives with governing boards headed by faculty members.

These initiatives are especially timely because we have been awarded Lilly grant funding, along with other IU campuses, for a strategic initiative to marshal the resources of the campus toward the region’s revitalization.

In pursuing excellence in these areas, we are developing partnerships with the northwest Indiana community that promote and produce sustainable, regional vitality. In our efforts to emphasize cultural discovery and learning, we are developing partnerships with our community to explore our regional cultures through diverse perspectives and forms of expression.

In the area of campus climate, we are focusing our efforts on student-centered activities and services, implementation of performance management throughout the institution and the Academic Quality Improvement Process (AQIP), a new approach to accreditation.

Another exciting development is that for the ninth consecutive term, we have seen an increase in enrollment. We have 5,091 students enrolled this semester, which represents a 3.3 percent increase from the previous spring term, with a 3.1 percent increase in student credit hours (46,199). It would be presumptuous of me to suggest that we understand all of the reasons why our enrollment is up, but I would like to mention a few factors.

As many know, frequently when the economy is down in a region, the enrollments at the regional public university go up, and certainly that could be a factor. However, we also are quite sure that the student-centered, effective work of our staff in enrollment services, information technology, student services and many other key offices has played a role along with the positive image that IU Northwest is developing in the external community.

IU Northwest continues to reaffirm its roles in society—to be an excellent regional public university as well as a major participant and educational resource for the development of northwest Indiana. The degree to which we will be successful in these roles will depend on our academic achievements, the scope and quality of our academic programs and the contribution we make to the lives of the communities that we serve. Based upon our recent successes, we can state with confidence that we are building the foundation for an enormously bright future.

I invite you to read more about the exciting developments, faculty research and community partnerships that we are pleased to highlight in this special section of IU Home Pages.