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Monday, November 9, 2015
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In Brief
Police issue 40 Halloween tickets Northern Star staff
Northern Star File Photo
Senior CLCE major Sonia Gonzalez helps clean the lagoon during Outdoor Adventure’s Lagoon Cleanup and Picnic on April 22. Applications for the Student Association director of the Environmental Affairs position will be open until Friday.
Apps open for SA director of Environmental Affairs Satta Kendor Staff writer
DeKalb | The application window for the Student Association’s director of Environmental Affairs position will be open on HuskieLink until the end of the week. The director of Environmental Affairs will coordinate environmental service projects, collaborate with university environmental groups for programming and a hold a minimum of one sustainability workshop per semester, according to an Oct. 19 Northern Star article. The
application for the position has been up on HuskieLink since Thursday and will remain online until 4 p.m. Friday. Students who are interested in applying need to write a letter of intent stating their interest in the position and what they would do if hired, and provide a resume, said SA President Nathan Lupstein. “I think people are really excited about the possibility of filling this position, and I think it’s going to acquire a lot of attention, so hopefully we get ... a lot of qualified applicants,” Lupstein said.
Senior English major Britney Young said she thinks the director of Environmental Affairs could help enforce the Smoke-Free Campus Act at NIU. The university has been a smoke-free campus since the act became effective July 1. “I feel one way they can help the campus is if that person is actually able to put together something that will enforce the non-smoking ban because although we have a ban against smoking we still see people walking around with their cigarettes, infesting our lungs with their smoke,” Young said.
Application for director of Environmental Affairs Go to niu.collegiatelink.net and click on the link on the front page to access the application. The deadline to apply is 4 p.m. Friday. Sophomore accounting major Eric Ngum said there is not a lot of waste lying around campus, but the environment could still be better. “I feel like the person will actually be helping campus,” Ngum said.
Students to vote on Rec Center locks Jackie Nevarez News Editor T @NevarezJackie
DeKalb | Student Association
President Nathan Lupstein said students will be able to test and vote on new locks for broken Recreation Center lockers next week. The SA started meeting with the Recreation Center in July to see how they could improve the issue of broken lockers, Lupstein said at SA Senate on Sunday. The SA determined about half of the broken lockers will be able to be fixed. “There is a figure that we had to replace all the broken lockers,” Lupstein said. “We don’t know if we can quite match that, especially
with the budget situation this year.” The electrical locks on the broken lockers will be replaced with mechanical locks. The Recreation Center is currently talking to two different contractors and testing two mechanical locks, Lupstein said. Students will be able to vote for the lock they like best next week at a station in the Recreation Center entrance. “So that’s great news,” Lupstein said. “That’s something ... we need to focus more attention on, is our facilities and ensuring that they’re up to a certain standard that other universities enjoy as well, and I think this is a great step in that direction.”
Supplemental funding Black Male Initiative was awarded $1,068 in supplemental funding for food purchased for the Student African American Brotherhood Regional Cluster Summit held Saturday. Student African American Brotherhood is an organization created to assist members “to excel academically, socially, culturally, professionally and in the community,” according to the organization’s website. Five chapters from Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Wisconsin, as well as members of NIU group Supporting Opportunities for Latinos attended the conference, said BMI President Jacob Clayton.
Appointments
• Tristan Martin, freshman political science major, was appointed a senator at large. • Jason Montemayor, secondyear law student, was appointed a Supreme Court justice. Clayton said BMI was chosen to host the Regional Cluster Summit, which is held every two years. The only expense asked of BMI was a continental breakfast and lunch for 80 guests as well as cups, plates, utensils and signs to direct traffic to the Campus Life Building, Clayton said.
DeKalb | The DeKalb and Sycamore police departments issued more than 40 citations and made three arrests for impaired driving over the Halloween weekend. The departments placed emphasis on the late-night hours after reviewing statistics from previous years. These hours show a statistically significant increase in people driving under the influence and a statistically significant decrease in the number of seatbelts being worn. Sycamore and DeKalb were only two of many law enforcement agencies throughout Illinois that participate in the initiative dubbed Halloween Crackdown. The effort was funded by the Illinois Department of Transportation and is part of the statewide “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” and “Click It or Ticket” campaigns.
Deadline near for pre-diabetic student study Northern Star Staff
DeKalb | Pre-diabetic and overweight students can receive free health checks for an upcoming study. Students are conducting a study of pre-diabetic and overweight males and females between the ages of 18 and 65. Those who have inflammation, but don’t know why should participate in the study, said Victoria Flores, a student working on the study. Participation in the 15-minute study is predicted to begin this week; however, Flores is still looking for 60 participants. The deadline for registering is Thanksgiving. Participants will answer questions for a health survey, get measured, and get a tube of blood drawn. Flores said participants benefit by receiving a free report of their body composition, free blood testing to determine their blood sugar level and free lab work to test hs-CRP, a common indicator of heart disease. Those who should not apply include women who are nursing or pregnant, people with bleeding disorders, implanted electrical devices and/or taking any antiinflammatory medications. Contact Flores at 714-785-1776 or via e-mail at z1746141@students.niu.edu.
Workshops held to help program heads write reports Ashley Morse Staff writer
DeKalb | Four Program Prioritization data workshops were held to provide additional assistance for program narrators with only a month until the Dec. 11 due date. Program Prioritization, which began in fall 2014, uses task forces to grade academic and administrative programs. Based on their grades, programs may be merged with others, gain funding or face budget cuts.
Each university program has a program author who will compile a less than 500 word-report detailing its findings of whether programs are utilizing funds properly. The authors will employ data collected from alumni surveys, departmental research and feedback from students in their reports. “The workshops were simply used to help authors understand and interpret anything that they had and also provide tips on their narration in respect to the data,” said John
Kearsing, Program Prioritization Data Support Team chair. The four workshops took place on Oct. 26, Oct. 30, Tuesday and Thursday in the Holmes Student Center. Each meeting lasted two hours and allowed for authors to ask questions on how to better prepare their narratives for their program. “I don’t think we were surprised at some of [the questions],” Kearsing said. Michelle Pickett, Academic Advising Center director and co-chair
of the Administrative Task Force, said she came to the data workshop because the Academic Advising Center is the only place on campus that advises undecided students, and she will have to do research on other colleges’ advising centers for her narrative. “I think that one of the things as a task force chair ... [is] there is a wide diversity of administrative programs on this campus and some of these are very unique to our school and state,” Pickett said. “So when
Prioritization criteria
Go to bit.ly/1NYFPuG to view the criteria by which academic and administrative programs will be measured for prioritization. you’re talking about the context ... that’s very important, because we want to understand that.” Kearsing said these meetings will not delay the due date of the narratives for Program Prioritization.