The Office of Campus Recreation has a new director, aimed at getting students involved with the OCR and making an effective recreation program.

OCR director Juliette Moore said she found the opportunity to direct “a bit overwhelming,” because the position is one of the “premiere positions in the field.”

Moore’s position began Tuesday when she started gathering information to determine how the OCR is operating at this point. “You’ve got to get a feel for what’s going on before you can look to the future,” she said.

Moore said she thinks it is important to be aware of the students’ changing needs, so the program can be more effective in what it does.

“The program is for the students, so we want their involvement,” she said.

Moore said she would like students to stop by her office and introduce themselves to her. “I want to let them know I’m available,” she said.

Moore was found by a search committee mainly composed of NIU students.

The students and faculty did not see eye-to-eye last April when a search committee needed to be appointed to find a replacement for Betty Montgomery, former director of OCR.

Barbara Henley, vice president for Student Affairs, called for, at that time, a search committee composed of a majority of administration and faculty with only two student representatives.

However, students argued they should have the majority vote in the OCR search committee, according to a 1980 document. After much controversy, the students were chosen to be the majority vote.

But Moore said she is ready to put controversies between NIU students and faculty behind and start fresh.

Although the search committee evoked conflict, Moore is glad the students were so interested.

“I don’t see it as a controversy, I see it as a great opportunity,” she said.

Moore wants the students and faculty to work together as a team and not take sides against each other.

“I don’t want the students to think of me as the enemy because I’m not,” Moore said.

Before coming to NIU, Moore was the associate director of student activities at James Madison University in Harrisburg, Va., a school with approximately 15,000 students.

Before that, Moore spent five years at Arizona State University as the assistant director of recreation, overseeing about 47,000 students.

Moore said that the difference in the sizes of the schools did not really affect her job.

“Basically the numbers change, but programming is pretty much the same,” she said. “The challenges are still there.”