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Thursday, February 19, 2015
815-753-5606 H @NIUNorthernStar H NorthernStar.info/Opinion
See what’s a pass and what’s a fail as judged by columnist Angelina McNeela.
Northern Star Campus Life Building, Room 130 545 Lucinda Ave. DeKalb, Ill., 60115 Web: www.NorthernStar.info Fax: 815-753-0708
Pass
Selfie event has positive message
Editorial Board Editorials reflect the majority opinion of the Editorial Board; columns reflect the opinion of the author alone. Editor in Chief & Publisher: Kelly Bauer Editor@NorthernStar.info 815-753-0105 Managing Editor: Keith Hernandez Editor@NorthernStar.info 815-753-0177 News Editor: Jackie Nevarez Editor@NorthernStar.info 815-753-9643 Digital Editor: Margaret Maka Editor@NorthernStar.info 815-753-9644 Perspective Editor: Rachel Scaman Editor@NorthernStar.info 815-753-9637 Sports Editor: Frank Gogola Sports@NorthernStar.info 815-753-9637 Scene Editor: Sabreena Saleem Editor@NorthernStar.info 815-753-5606 Photo Editor: Ryan Ocasio Editor@NorthernStar.info 815-753-1602 Other Assistant Scene Editor: Darius Parker 815-753-5606 Advertising Manager: Derek Noel Ads@NorthernStar.info 815-753-0108 Circulation Manager: Andrew Parnell 815-753-0707 Adviser: Shelley Hendricks 815-753-4239 Business Adviser: Maria Krull 815-753-0707 Departments Newsroom: 815-753-0105 Advertising: 815-753-0107 Classifieds: 815-753-0707 About us The Northern Star is a limited public forum whose content is determined exclusively by its student editors. Information presented in this newspaper and its website is not controlled by NIU administration, faculty or staff. The Northern Star has a circulation of 10,000 Mondays and Thursdays. It publishes online at NorthernStar.info every day. A single copy of the Northern Star is free. Additional copies are 50 cents. Letters to the editor Letters should not exceed 300 words and may be edited for clarity and brevity. The deadline for a letter is 4 p.m. one day before the desired date of publication. Submissions may be held due to space limitations. Letters written by students should include the author’s year and major. Letters should include a phone number where the author can be reached. Phone numbers will not be published. Letters may be submitted to Editor@NorthernStar.info. Advertisement policy The Northern Star does not knowingly accept advertisements that discriminate on the basis of sex, race, creed, handicapped or veteran status, or sexual orientation. Nor does the Northern Star knowingly print ads that violate any local, state or federal laws. To place an advertisement, contact the Northern Star advertising team at 815753-0108 or ads@NorthernStar.info. To view advertising rates, go to NorthernStar.info/site/advertise/. Hiring Student employees must carry a minimum of six NIU semester hours and must have a cumulative GPA of 2.0 or better. Students of all majors and experience levels are welcome to apply. Apply at www.NorthernStarJobs.info.
Perspective
Chelsea Ortiz | Northern Star
Student input needed to keep printing quota printing for all their printing needs. Judging by these results, students need NIU to continue the printing quota, but they need to do more to let officials know this. Students can reach out by writing letters to the Rachel Scaman editor, contacting administrators to Perspective Editor T @rachelmscaman share their thoughts or voicing their opinion at SA Senate meetings. Students need to stand behind the SA Senate Speaker Dillon Student Association as it fights to Domke said many of the survey rekeep the $7 printing quota. spondents wanted NIU to provide On-campus printing is set to free printing as an incentive seeing switch from a quota system to a as students pay so much in tuition pay-as-you-go system where students and fees already. deposit money onto their OneCards. “With the results that [the SA] Students are allocated $7 a semester has found, we would like to see a in printing, a 50 percent drop from continued printing quota paid for last year’s $14, which itself was a drop by something other than increased from the $21 allocated to students student fees or tuition,” Domke said. per semester in fall 2012 and spring Domke said the SA not only wants 2013. Before fall 2012, students had the printing quota to continue, unlimited free printing. but it also wants it increased. He The SA Senate used an online said members don’t have an exact survey to see how many and how fre- number they want it to increase to, quently students use campus printbut based off the survey results $7 ing and found about 74 percent of isn’t enough for students. Domke students rely completely on campus will meet with Chief Information
Officer Brett Coryell on Monday to have a more in-depth discussion on the results. One question on the survey asked, “Should the university continue to allocate funds to provide free printing for students? Keep in mind allocating these funds to printing would not allow for advancement of other technologies (Wi-Fi, computer labs, etc.).” Coryell said if students want to continue the printing quota, he will try and work that into the budget. “I would be surprised if students valued printing more than Wi-Fi,” Coryell said. “In the end, students should have a voice and that’s more important than my opinion.” If students want the printing quota to stay the same more than they want advanced Wi-Fi or cell reception, they need to let NIU know. The SA also needs to keep asking for student feedback so it can voice the opinion of the students and try to work with NIU on getting what the students want.
Rauner’s budget plan can cause layoffs, tuition raise Rachel Scaman Perspective Editor T @rachelmscaman
Gov. Bruce Rauner’s budget cuts will put a roadblock on the path NIU students take to get an education. NIU was given about $93 million from the state for Fiscal Year 2015, but that would be cut by about $29.3 million to about $64 million with Rauner’s budget proposal. With as drastic a budget cut as that proposed by Rauner, NIU would have to make cuts to programs, professors and projects that have been in the works. All these things make for great educational experiences, and without them students will play thousands for an education that is sub par.
Cutting the funding given to NIU will negatively affect the students by not giving them the best education NIU can offer: The fewer professors NIU has the larger classes will be. With larger classes and fewer staff members, students will have less time to engage with their professors. This could also mean fewer classes are offered each semester and students have to attend NIU longer to be able to graduate. On top of all that, NIU may have to raise tuition to increase revenue and make up for the funding cut. Baker has said he does not want to raise tuition because he thinks it will keep students from attending NIU; however, Wednesday he said NIU may have to if it faces so severe a budget cut. Baker said NIU will “have to see what deliberations come out of the Legislature.” He said NIU has set tuition for the 2015-16 academic year and he hopes NIU “would be able to
Costs The only two Illinois public universities that cost more than NIU: • University of Illinois at Chicago: $14,588 • University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign: $15,602 keep it there” in the future. Tuition is already expensive: Undergraduates paid $13,510 in tuition and fees in 2015, the third-highest among public Illinois universities. Students, faculty and NIU administrators should be worried. NIU’s enrollment has been dropping — from 25,254 students in 2007 to 20,611 in the fall — and this budget cut isn’t going to make things better. If NIU has to raise tuition again, it runs the risk of losing more students.
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The second Self-ie Perspective event is a positive opportunity to receive and give uplifting compliments. It is refreshing to see social media culture meet pro-social behaviors in a digital society where self-image is heavily influenced by validation people receive online. Taking selfies is not always a narcissistic ego stroke. The second Self-ie Perspective event will offer students an opportunity to showcase photos of themselves and their insecurities 9 p.m. Tuesday in the Holmes Student Center, Duke Ellington Ballroom. Attendees will leave Post-it notes with compliments on each person’s photo. This type of premeditated compliment is more personal than a ref lexive “like” on Facebook because it shows people how beautiful everyone sees them despite their insecurities. The photos, which are supposed to portray insecurities, will be compiled from submissions posted on the event’s Facebook page, on.fb.me/1vHMPRQ. Complimenting doesn’t have to be limited to a twohour showcase event. Students can say nice things and give compliments every day on the bus, in a lunch line or passing someone in a hall. Self-ie Perspective is an opportunity to make someone smile.
Fail
NIU pushes for better phone use The Bring Your Own Device Fair will try to help students get to know their personal electronics even more — as if people aren’t already married to their digital pacifiers. The event is 1:30 p.m. Feb. 26 in the Holmes Student Center, Ellington’s Restaurant. If you pay attention you will find students glued to their cellphones, more willing to make eye contact with a touchscreen than a human face. Eye contact is more than just a polite gesture when meeting or interacting with someone; it also helps people not get run over by cars when crossing the street. If the NIU community wants to improve its electronic skills, it needs to focus on interacting with people first. Don’t get me wrong; there are some benefits to being more tech-savvy, especially in academia where navigating Blackboard from laptops and smartphones is vital to surviving in some classes. But, instead of learning how to become more dependent on technology, people need to use it for what it is: a tool, not a life source.