Athletics Director Peter Roby announced Friday that a review panel will convene to provide feedback on the current state of the athletics program.

Roby, in a message posted on the myNEU portal, said the panel will be composed of 16 people, including representatives from the university’s governing boards as well as faculty, students and alumni.

The group, whose deliberations will be kept confidential, will be charged with providing feedback on the current state of the athletics program, including academic progress, funding needs, facilities requirements, potential for future team success and student and alumni support, according to the announcement.

Roby, who did not reply to an e-mail requesting comment yesterday, wrote in his message, “When I was appointed director, I immediately undertook a thorough review of the entire athletics program, with the goal of developing and recommending a strategy that will enable us to achieve and sustain excellence.”

Since assuming the post last July, Roby has been “conducting this assessment and preparing recommendations,” the message said.

The announcement comes on the heels of a report last month by The News in which Roby indicated the possibility of eliminating an athletic program in an effort to realign his department’s financial resources.

“Nothing is off the table, but we haven’t made the ultimate determination based on what we need and how we are going to make that happen,” Roby told The News in October, recalling Northeastern President Joseph Aoun’s mandate for each department “to try and be distinctive and excellent.”

Joey Fiore, president of the Student Government Association (SGA), said Roby contacted him Nov. 9 about joining the panel.

“I don’t know if they’ve already made a decision,” Fiore said, “but a lot of things are pointing in a way that would say they have a direction they want to go in.”

In recent weeks, Roby and other Northeastern officials have said little publicly about scaling back the program, which has prompted dozens of e-mails from former athletes and Husky fans to senior administrators, with many recalling their days on the field and how the experience transcended over a lifetime.

One of those e-mails, obtained by The News, garnered a response from Roby that may shed light on the future of the program.

“Ultimately, any decisions made about the athletic department will be made with the best interests of the entire student-athlete population in mind, and like with many decisions that individuals or organizations are faced with, there often is short term pain for long term gain,” he wrote in an exchange dated Nov. 13.

Fiore said he was not aware that the panel’s deliberations would remain confidential. He said, “If this agreement prohibits me from speaking about the athletics program or football or any other specific athletic situation on campus, I don’t think I’m going to sit on the committee.”

Some who follow Husky athletics, in interviews with The News and through a forum on the Diehard Dogs website, run for fans of Northeastern athletics, have expressed frustration about university officials remaining mum about the landscape of the athletics department, including financial aspects of its production, and about its director’s plan for the future.

The financial overhead that goes with funding a football program, which some said pulls more than five dozen scholarships for players and runs an annual cost of more than $3 million, has made the program a target for speculation.

Tom Racca, who graduated from Northeastern in 1984 and has two sons following his footsteps by participating in Husky athletics, has spent the past week organizing a letter-writing campaign to senior Northeastern administrators after he caught wind of the potential cuts.

“I think [Roby] owes it to the alumni and to the students to share his vision of Northeastern athletics,” Racca said in an interview with The News.

Head football coach Rocky Hager dismissed recent speculation as “nothing but a rumor” in a letter to football fans during Homecoming weekend.

“Let’s be clear; a decision has not been made as to how the department will go about achieving the level of excellence we all desire,” Hager wrote.