(03-21-2019 10:31 PM)pvk75 Wrote: I was referring to whatever piece of the Chicago market is gettable, with geography being important. I know it needs more than just simple marketing. And I know the connections to Rockford are weak. But we can't keep saying "oh, that won't work," and "that won't work" and "that won't work" and expect anything to change. Northern has to start doing something, because running in place accomplishes nothing.
I mentioned the Fox Valley because Northern already has connections there. I mentioned the Harvest Farms golf program support. The Victor E. Huskie Ball is held at the Naperville campus on Diehl Road. Northern has a strong academic/research connection to Fermilab in Batavia. It does NOT have those kinds of connections to Rockford. It does NOT have those connections throughout Chicagoland.
But, hey, let's wait for someone to drop dead and leave Northern a legacy of $7 million a year. Then Northern doesn't have to try to do a damn thing to help itself.
That's all fine and good, but "doing something" is not always the answer. First of all, I admire your dedication and conviction on this, so please understand my pushback is not an attempt to tear down, but to push forward. I simply don't see it the way you do, which is why my conviction in the other direction is as pointed as it is.
With that said, how many alumni are in the Naperville/Fox Valley area? And, with that said, the area where the NIU campus is located, isn't exactly the heart of Naperville. Many people don't even ever go over in that area.
Anyway, I don't want to come off as a "don't do anything because nothing can change" but I do see the situation as, "well....its been a long time and there are some really strong roots in a lot of these areas by other programs not named NIU, so.....".
I kind of see NIU as needing to just embrace who it is and not trying to become something it isn't. NIU just doesn't fit in with the AAC. It's DeKalb. You can't fake it into encompassing Chicago or Elgin or Naperville/Elgin, etc. It's too far away to just absorb those places and it doesn't have the allure of being the main university in the state. I just don't see how they could compete (or fit in) with schools (some private schools) in larger metro areas like Cincinnati, Orlando, Wichita, New Orleans (even though Tulane is dreadful and the AAC probably regrets including them...which isn't a good thing for NIU's prospects), Houston, Philadelphia, Memphis, Dallas, Tulsa, Greenville, etc. They're just completely different animals.
Honestly, the idea of NIU in the AAC seems like such a bad fit to me, its not even worth thinking about especially when the only way to make any type of sense of it is to do some high level mental gymnastics of trying to gerrymander regional footprints so it looks like NIU sits/possesses a much larger population than it actually does.