2008 Woodie Awards
SGA discusses strategy, guns
Ed Komenda
Issue date: 4/30/08 Section: News
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Guest speakers Rhonda Kline, director of Institutional Research and Planning, and Bill Brewer, Assistant Director of the Physical Plant, sought an endorsement from SGA that would help get the new plan approved.
"This is actually an update from the strategic plan from two years ago, and we are really hoping to get endorsement from the student government," Brewer said.
The plan is titled "An Agenda for Western Illinois University," and according to Kline, the administration hopes to use the plan until 2018.
"We have six goals, and they all relate to the core values of the university," Kline said.
The outlined goals include focused recruitment and retention, enriching academic excellence, availability of educational opportunities, a heightened level of personal growth, a stronger promotion of social responsibility and a respectable demonstration of accountability.
"One of the first things that we did was outline the strengths and weaknesses of the university, as well as the opportunities and threats, and did an analysis," Brewer said.
He added the outline that was compiled helped determine the contents of the new strategic plan, although most of the plan stayed intact.
"We did was we really restructured the plan and some things from the previous plan carried over," Kline said. "We did add ideas for new goals and opportunities."
According to Brewer, it is important for students to approve the document due to its strong influence on their future experiences.
"I think this plan is a little easier and more elegant," Brewer said. "It is a really important document, because it really sets the bar for what we want to do."
In other business, SGA President Robert Dulski addressed a recent outbreak of "air soft gun wars" that have taken place around his neighborhood.
"This is a big time safety concern as well as a social responsibility issue, especially because of the recent shooting threat that happened on campus and the actual shooting that happened at Northern," he said.
According to Dulski, although the problem has not affected the campus as a whole, it is better to act in a proactive manner to prevent potential injury and judicial action.
"The thing is that they don't actually use the guns how they look; they trick them out, scrape them down and put camouflage them," Dulski said. "If a police officer sees you running around with a realistic looking gun, they will shoot you; there are no two buts about it.
"There is no law that prohibits these guns, but if an officer sees you brandishing one, you will end up getting hurt and in a lot more trouble than you think," Dulski said.
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