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Monday, May 4, 2015
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Lupstein talks SA executive goals Engagement, change guide Lupstein cabinet
change that’s noticeable on campus, something that the everyday student can say is changing for the better.
Augustin Zehnder Staff writer
DeKalb | Student Association President Nathan Lupstein said his newly-inaugurated ticket will look to create an app that would allow students to voice ideas and find answers to questions about the SA. Lupstein and his ticket, the Voice of Change, faced disqualification after being sanctioned during the 2015 SA executive election in March. The SA Supreme Court declared the sanctions unfounded and lifted the disqualification at a March 31 hearing. Lupstein won the presidential election by popular vote, receiving 1,682 votes to opponent Ben Donovan’s 633. Inaugurated on Thursday, Lupstein said he wants to bring campus support systems and resources to students who have never heard of them.
Q: Could you outline the plans your administration has for your term as SA president? A: Yes, so our administration has three basic pillars. ... First, we want to make sure that not only is the student body Nathan Lupstein educated about Student Association president the Student Association, but that as a cabinet we make as wide an effort to connect with the student body as we can.
Kelsey Brown | Northern Star
Nathan Lupstein, vice president of programming for the Campus Activity Board, works at his desktop in the CAB office in the Campus Life Building. Lupstein was inaugurated as the Student Association president Thursday.
... A lot of administrations have talked about making sure students know what the SA is, what it does. Our administration wants to carry that on but we also think it’s important that we educate ourselves about what the students want. We’re expecting to do that through educational meetings, through public forums where students and SA members can collaborate and help each other have accurate ideas of what’s going on on campus. ... We’d like to create an app, possibly through the NIU app or maybe even an entirely new one, where people can submit different suggestions, different ideas or criticisms and find answers to questions. So we think that would be really cool since a lot of people our age expect to have a digital avenue to send in recommendations and stuff like that.
... Our second pillar is effective engagement. Our administration, we’d like to think, has developed to be all about Engaging Student Solutions so [engagement] is a big part. It’s not just informing students, it’s engaging them.
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We have a lot of great things here on campus to engage with students, but there’s a lack of knowledge. So, I think the Student Association needs to play a very active role in engaging the student body ... .” Nathan Lupstein Student Association president
One of the things we do in campus outreach is find out what the issues are, the problems students see on campus, and then educate the
student body collectively. Because if we hear an issue on campus from a student or organization there’s a good chance that a lot of other students are dealing with the same issue. If we engage the student body around certain issues, then change is a lot more likely. ... And that segues perfectly to our last pillar, which is the most important: evident change. ... For someone that has never heard of the Student Association, we’d like them to be able to say at the end of our administration, because of our work with the SA or because of our involvement on campus, that students have noticed some change during their time here. So maybe they’re not like, ‘Oh, the SA did this, this and that.’ But even if they have no knowledge of what the SA is, we still want to affect those students by giving some sort of
Q: Going along with the idea of evident change, how can the SA help address NIU’s declining retention rate? A: I think the SA can help fix the problem in two ways. One, the SA does preside over all student organizations. If we have students engaged and being really active members on campus I think that will help. If we’re going out there and making sure the SA is helping student organizations grow and thrive as much as possible I think that involvement will become a much bigger aspect of student life here. Having students involved in other areas on campus besides academics is great for retention and more importantly, we’ll have prepared them professionally and personally for life after college. But another thing we can do is ... push for campus outreach in a way that the Student Association and NIU have never seen before. I think a lot more students will be aware of the Student Association and know that their voice is represented and that will increase the likelihood of keeping the things that make students want to be here. We have a lot of great things here on campus to engage with students, but there’s a lack of knowledge. So, I think the Student Association needs to play a very active role in engaging the student body, of going out there and interacting with them, talking to them about important things on campus so their interests can be a lot more accurately represented and make for a more compelling student experience.
SA Senate moves SA Senate OK’s 3 directors elections to spring Ashley Morse Staff writer T @amnorthernstar
Ashley Morse Staff writer T @amnorthernstar
SA Senate voter turnouts 2011: 937
DeKalb | The Student Associa- 2012: 675
tion Senate will move its election from the fall semester to the spring to increase voter turnout. The SA Senate election will coincide with the 2016 SA executive election in the spring. There will be a final SA Senate election in the fall.
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In comparison [to the fall election], the new directors are taking office, the new administration is just getting in and the Senate hasn’t met.” Dillon Domke Student Association Senate Speaker
The SA Senate made the change with a 35-2 vote at its April 26 meeting, as it approved a bill authored by SA Senate Speaker Dillon Domke and SA Deputy Speaker Robert Kreml. Kreml and Domke gave a presentation of their research supporting the election date change at the SA Senate meeting. Both Domke and Kreml
2013: 750 2014: 720 researched 17 schools and found schools with only one election in the spring had a higher voter turnout then those with elections in the fall and spring. Texas A&M, which has close to 30,000 more students than NIU, garnered a voter turnout of 13,628 in a single election, according to Domke and Kreml’s presentation. Part of the reason for the merging of the election was to increase the voter turnout for SA Senate elections, Domke said. The turnout for the spring elections tends to be higher than that of the fall, Domke said. “In comparison [to the fall election], the new directors are taking office, the new administration is just getting in and the Senate hasn’t met,” Domke said. “So there’s not really a lot of activities and things going on to kind of publicize the SA.”
DeKalb | The three vacant Student Association director positions were filled at Sunday’s SA Senate meeting. The senate approved eight director positions at its April 26 meeting, after the Senate denied the appointment of two candidates and one position lacked an appointment.
Director positions Timi Adeboje, senior management technology major, was appointed director of Academic Affairs by the newly-elected SA President Nathan Lupstein as the position was left vacant with no appointee at the last SA Senate meeting. Adeboje was recently elected as president of the Black Student Union on Tuesday. One of Adeboje’s goals for next year is to create a fact sheet for PLUS, a revision of undergraduate studies requirements set to take effect this fall. The senate confirmed Adeboje’s appointment with a 20-9 vote. Public law major Alyssa Dunbar said her goals for the position of director of Advertising were to open advertising on the Huskie Pups, electric vehicles designed to transport students across campus, to the community and businesses.
Alexandra Meyer | Northern Star
Student Association Senator Alexus Lentz speaks during the SA Senate meeting Sunday. Lentz was approved as director of Greek Affairs by the SA Senate, but will need confirmation from SA President Nathan Lupstein.
Dunbar said she wants to increase advertising during the summer for orientation to get more students involved. The senate confirmed Dunbar’s appointment with a 20-9 vote. Lupstein withdrew his support for Jaclyn Keith, who was not approved as director of Greek Affairs by the Senate at its April 26 meeting; however, the SA Senate did not want the position vacant for the summer, said SA Deputy Speaker Robert Kreml. SA Senator Alexus Lentz was approved by the Senate for this position, but will still need the approval of Lupstein to be confirmed.
Election bylaw changes The Senate approved both new and revised bylaws for elections regarding polling stations and identification. Kreml authored a bill that would no longer require a person to have a OneCard to vote, since elections are now exclusively online through HuskieLink. Students are required to enter their Z-ID and password to access voting. The Recreation Center has been removed as a polling place because of low voter turnout at the center, said SA Senate Speaker Dillon Domke. The New Hall Community Center will replace the Rec.