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Monday, March 2, 2015
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SA Senate moves voting online Ashley Morse Staff writer T @amnorthernstar
DeKalb | After a nearly 90-minute debate on the effectiveness of online voting, the Student Association Senate passed a bill, 20-12, that would allow students to vote online for the SA executive election. Polling stations in DuSable Hall, the Holmes Student Center, Recreation Center, Founders Memorial Library and Barsema Hall will now have laptops where students can vote. Aside from the polling stations, students will be able to vote on their phones and electronic devices through the Huskie Link website, niu.collegiatelink.net, a social networking site for student organizations. Senator Gregory Lezon, member of the SA board of elections, said he was concerned about the use of Huskie Link for voting as there could be bugs with the system. David White, SA election commissioner and the senator who proposed online voting, said he would run tests to ensure the website would work fine. Senator Jordan Clayton-Taylor expressed concern with moving toward electronics as “someone could use another person’s [OneCard] to vote.” White said the system for online voting would work the same way as the paper ballot voting as a OneCard
NIU health insurance costs set to rise to $1K Keith Hernandez Managing Editor T @dezjournalism
Alexandra Meyer | Northern Star
Student Association Senator David White discusses his bill to move SA executive elections to online voting during Sunday’s SA Senate meeting in the Holmes Student Center, Sky Room. White said online voting would increase voter participation, but other senators said turnout would be better increased with advertising.
is required to be swiped to vote and a person can only vote once. White and Senator Brandon Phillips, SA election board chairman, said they hope to use the online elections as an opportunity to increase turnout. White and Phillips have previously said their plan for the spring election is to increase the voter turnout to 5,000 students, which would be a near double increase from spring 2014’s 2,600 students. “About three-fourths of the schools who actually use online voting have said that the lowest turnout that they’ve gotten with the voting
was at least 21 percent of the school population,” Phillips said. Senator Rachel Gorsuch, member of the SA board of elections, said most schools are beginning to use online voting and NIU is one of the few schools still doing paper voting. Clayton-Taylor said she wanted to focus on more advertising for voting rather than introducing online voting. Legislative Branch adviser Kelli Bradley, who does not normally sit with the SA Senate, moved to sit in an empty Senate seat and said the Senate had to keep in
mind the student body. “This is not about your matter of opinion about the online elections. You have to put aside whatever you think about Huskie Link and instead take into consideration about how this can improve the student body,” Bradley said. Clayton-Taylor again said online voting would do nothing to help improve voter turnout and the SA needs to “fix what was in place.” After the conclusion of the voting, White said people aren’t used to change, but a change like this was “pretty big” and “necessary.”
SA orders shirts for small student orgs the smaller student orgs that have maybe five or six members, for DeKalb | The Student Associa- them to go into a T-shirt company tion has purchased 2,000 T-shirts and get shirts made for the organito provide student organizations zation,” Forman said. a cheap and convenient means to promote activity and recruit memThe whole idea behind it bers, said James Forman, SA direcis the smaller student orgs tor of Advertising. ... for them to go into a The SA will have the 2,000 TT-shirt company and get shirts, 500 of which will be for SA shirts made for the organiuse, printed and available for orzation.” der Wednesday and available for James Forman purchase after Spring Break, ForStudent Association director of Advertising man said. The T-shirts are blank on the front so they can be customized with an organization’s The SA paid $6,500 to order the logo. The back of the shirt consists T-shirts, but the cost is expected to of the SA logo and motto, “Your be covered when the SA receives Voice, Our Mission,” and logos of payments from sponsors on Tues11 supporting sponsors. day, Forman said. “The whole idea behind it is To order a shirt, an organization Alex Nugent Staff writer
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or club must fill out a form and submit its logo and other required information to the SA advertising committee for approval. Once approved, the organization can then go to OLT Marketing, 817 W. Lincoln Highway, fill out a form and the order will be ready within two to three days. The cost is $3 per shirt, plus a $25 one time set-up fee for screen printing. If the buyer wants to add color to their logo it will cost an extra $1 for each shirt printed. The idea of selling space for advertising to other student organizations is a new one for the SA and organizers think this will be a successful project because it helps smaller student organizations who do not have as much manpower or funds, Forman said. “It might cost them $60 or $70
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Shirt order forms To view the order form for the shirts, go to bit.ly/1GFwC6l. Forms may be turned in to the Student Association office in the Campus Life Building, Room 180. to go and get shirts for five or six people, so what we’re trying to provide is they can go in and get them for about $3 or $4 per person,” Forman said. “They can go in and get their logo on the front so it can be substantially cheaper for them.” The SA will continue the idea, “assuming that student organizations pick it up and utilize the service,” Forman said. “Maybe we’ll order 2,500 next year.”
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DeKalb | The Affordable Care Act will again be responsible for a possible NIU student health insurance fee increase, which the Board of Trustees will vote on at its March 12 meeting. The Board of Trustees Finance, Facilities and Operations Committee approved a recommendation to increase student health insurance from $744 per semester to $1,052 on Thursday. The increase would be NIU’s second health insurance fee increase due to the Affordable Care Act since Fiscal Year 2015’s raise of $214 per semester. Health insurance providers NIU reached out to dramatically increased their bids for the second year in a row to comply with the act’s requirements, said Eric Weldy, vice president of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management. Weldy said he is working on negotiating a lower cost with vendor Academic HealthPlans for Fiscal Year 2016, but the health insurance fee “is not going to go any higher.” Weldy was not immediately available to comment further on the requirements of the act. Students taking nine or more credit hours who are already insured will still be able to opt out of the NIU plan; however, those who cannot find outside coverage will have to pay the higher cost. Nicolas Rancher, a freshman electrical engineering major who has NIU’s insurance, said more students will try to find cheaper insurance elsewhere or get on their parents’ plans, but he is OK with the increase. “As long as it takes care of me then I’m fine,” Rancher said. “My health is more important. I’d rather be healthy than in a hospital worrying about it.” Paul Hagari, a senior political science major who has NIU’s insurance, said he doesn’t like the increase, but there is little that can be done to prevent it. “If there’s nothing [the Board of Trustees] can do about it then there’s nothing they can do about it,” Hagari said.
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