8
Monday, April 11, 2016
Northern Star
815-753-5606 H @NIUNorthernStar H NorthernStar.info/Opinion
Students should know importance of Sexual Assault Awareness Month
NIU will address pay inequality
Editorial Board Editorials reflect the majority opinion of the Editorial Board; columns reflect the opinion of the author alone. Editor in Chief & Publisher: Jackie Nevarez Editor@NorthernStar.info 815-753-0105
Lisa Freeman Executive vice president and provost Alan Philips Chief Financial officer
Managing Editor: Rachel Scaman Editor@NorthernStar.info 815-753-0177
Greg Long Faculty Senate president
News Editor: Alexander Chettiath Editor@NorthernStar.info 815-753-9643 Assistant News Editor: Leah Nicolini Editor@NorthernStar.info Digital Editor: Margaret Maka, Jessica Plessner Editor@NorthernStar.info 815-753-9644 Perspective Editor: Angela L. Pagan Editor@NorthernStar.info 815-753-9637 Sports Editor: Chris Loggins Editor@NorthernStar.info 815-753-9637 Assistant Sports Editor: Thomas Hiley Editor@NorthernStar.info 815-753-9637
Photo Editor: Nick Bosshart Editor@NorthernStar.info 815-753-1602 Other 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 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 Phone numbers will not be published.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.
Letter to the Editor Letters to the Editor are the author’s opinion alone.
Campus Life Building, Room 130 545 Lucinda Ave. DeKalb, Ill., 60115 Web: www.NorthernStar.info Fax: 815-753-0708
Scene Editor: Darius Parker Editor@NorthernStar.info 815-753-5606
Perspective
Faith Mellenthin | Northern Star
Point/Counterpoint: Gender neutral restrooms NIU is working on a draft for the inclusion of more gender-neutral restrooms on campus. Some restrooms would only require a change of sign. Read more at bit.ly/22na2so.
Inclusive bathrooms demonstrate support of transgender community Kaylyn Zielinski Columnist
The university should continue to create more gender-inclusive bathrooms on campus to show that it supports those who identify with a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth. Contrary to popular belief,
sex and gender are two different concepts. Someone could be born a certain sex but identify as a gender different from what they were assigned at birth. Before addressing this issue, it is important to understand the difference between sex and gender. Sex is a person’s classification as male or female, whereas gender is someone’s deeply held sense of identity in terms of culture and society — not biological qualities. Gender may not fit neatly in a category. Gender-inclusive bathrooms
would allow all students to use these bathrooms regardless of the gender they identify with. Another benefit of these bathrooms is that people with a child of a different gender can use the use the same restroom. NIU should be a place where students feel safe using a restroom regardless of their gender identity. There should be more gender-inclusive bathrooms on campus in the future. I applaud those who have pushed for more gender-inclusive bathrooms on our campus.
Bathroom renovations needed prior to gender-neutral sign modifications
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 815-7530108 or ads@NorthernStar.info. To view advertising rates, go to NorthernStar.info/site/advertise/.
Faith Mellenthin Columnist
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.NorthernStar.info.
Other additions and reconstruction should be done to NIU facilities before considering adding gender-neutral bathrooms. I would recommend these
additional bathrooms only in main facilities including the Holmes Student Center, Health Services and the residence halls. At the moment, there are some buildings on campus that lack traditional men’s and women’s bathrooms in convenient locations. Reavis Hall only has bathrooms on the ground floor of the building. Students have to go out of their way in order to use the bathrooms — this should be addressed before adding gender neutral stalls.
NIU should add more genderspecific bathrooms before adding gender-neutral ones to those new locations since the addition of gender-inclusive bathrooms will take less time than standard bathrooms. While it is easiest to just switch the sign on a bathroom so as to make it gender-neutral, actual reconstruction could be expensive in the long run. I think these bathrooms are necessary but not realistic to build at the moment.
As noted in the Northern Star there are faculty members who are concerned about salary inequity based on gender, and who believe that the administration has been slow to respond. In fact, members of NIU’s senior leadership are aware of and concerned about salary equity issues impacting NIU faculty members. In a Feb. 24 presentation to the Faculty Senate, Provost Lisa Freeman spoke directly to the need for NIU to develop a multi-year plan that will allow NIU to maintain competitive salaries for new hires, address salary compression and inversion and conduct a salary equity study. In the March 28 issue of the Northern Star, Chief Financial Officer Alan Phillips affirmed the university’s commitment to faculty salary equity. NIU performed a comprehensive salary equity study in 2008 that was subsequently updated in 2011. These analyses showed no relationship between gender, ethnicity, age and salary. It’s time again to review parity in faculty salaries using statistical analyses to address concerns about systemic bias. Moreover, we need to build into our five-year budget process the resources to perform such analyses at regular intervals. The regression model and study design used in 2008 were developed with extensive input from the faculty, informed by the work of three committees drawn from across the campus in a manner consistent with NIU’s system of shared governance as described in the reference cited above. In preparation for NIU’s next salary equity study, Faculty Senate President Greg Long will charge a task force with making recommendations about the processes used to examine salary structures for inequities. We expect the task force to propose a statistical model and study design with minimal potential to mask bias. In addition, we hope the task force will suggest cost-effective, transparent options for conducting salary studies at regular intervals, so that disparities attributable to race and/or gender or other biases can be identified and remedied. Long will be advising the campus community about how to become involved in this work, and the time-lines for presentation of the recommendations.
More information To read more on the pay equity study conducted by NIU in 2008, updated in 2011, go to bit. ly/1SYnQHk.