The Strategic Planning Steering Committee will discuss the next step of the ongoing process for university improvement today at 7 p.m. in the Arcola-Tuscola Room in the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.

Tuesday’s meeting will be a working meeting at which there is no set agenda, said Bill Weber, the vice president for business affairs.

However he encourages anyone who is interested in the process to attend as the committee is always looking for people to help.

At the end of the calendar year this process will have helped the committee generate goals for where Eastern wants to be five to 10 years from now, said Weber, the committee co-chair.

This process has five stages. The first stage was getting organized and consisted of selecting a 24-member committee that reflects the diversity of the university community. This organization stage started in October 2010 and it ended mid-January.

As of February 2011 the committee is officially in the second phase of the process known as the Data Gathering and Engagement Phase.

“In the next two months we will begin gathering data and engaging as many people as possible in the process,” Weber said. “We will be talking to and gathering input from people both on and off campus, we hope to engage anywhere from 500 to 1,000 people within the two months.”

The committee’s website reinforces this idea by saying the phase is “designed to meaningfully engage stake holders both on and off campus.”

Weber said in order for this phase to be successful the committee broke into groups of three to lead discussions with the various groups on campus about what future challenges the university may face in the future as well as engage the groups in the process of planning for these challenges.

“Our goal is to go out and have as many as possible heartfelt, meaningful conversations with campus stake holders while talking to and listening to them,” Weber said.

Weber said almost all on campus organizations will be visited. He said as a push to engage the rest of the community, committee members will meet with local schools as well as the Charleston City Council.

Weber encourages the people of campus to get involved in this important process by going to the committee’s website

He said the website allows people to see where in the process the committee is as well as find out who is on the committee and how to contact them.

Amy Wywialowski can be reached at 581-2812 oralwywialowski@eiu.edu.