The Office of Campus Recreation will remain largely controlled by students thanks to the efforts of the Student Association.

Student Affairs and the SA have worked out a new OCR operating agreement that all agree conforms to the school’s constitution.

Even more important, the issue of search committees for staff hirings that had divided the SA and the Student Affairs has been resolved favorably. Any opening in the director position would require a search committee with an administrative/faculty majority. But all other professional staff positions in the OCR would be filled by student-majority search committees.

The importance of this compromise is that it trashes the idea that the NIU constitution required search committees to have an administrative/faculty majority. This precedent will keep more power in the hands of the students.

The agreement also creates a student-majority Campus Recreation Council to oversee programming, budget requests and other policies.

The SA members and administrative staff should be congratulated both for keeping the students in control of the OCR and for refraining from the loaded accusations and attention seeking that have too often characterized negotiations of this kind.