Editor’s Note: This is the first of a three part series about the Illinois Student Association, a student lobbying group. On Thursday, students will decide in a referendum whether to continue paying $1 to keep NIU a part of the ISA.

When the Illinois Student Association reorganized itself four years ago, it started a publicity campaign that included buttons saying “Students are back.”

That is the message ISA Executive Director David Starrett is trying to get across to Illinois representatives, university administrators and students.

But the reason the ISA had to make a statement about coming back is because for a long time it was hardly there.

The ISA in its current form has existed for only three years even though the organization has been around for 10 years. Before 1987, the ISA was basically a social group for student leaders, Starrett said.

In a report detailing the ISA history, Starrett wrote that pre-1987 was “a sort of large scale statewide student government rather than a student-interest membership corporation.”

“Frankly, students did not deal with each other across the system,” Starrett said. “There just was not a lot of organization.”

His report said one of the reasons for the failure of the ISA was the lack of money. The money would be needed for office space in Springfield, full-time employees, office supplies and expenses to travel to different universities.

And in 1988, NIU students decided in a 299-49 vote that they would pay $1 each per year to support the ISA. NIU students contribute about $22,000 every year.

Now, Starrett said 11 universities are part of the ISA. They include the University of Illinois in Urbana and Chicago, the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn and Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and Edwardsville.

But now that the ISA is established, what does it do?

When the Illinois General Assembly is in session, Starrett said he looks through every bill and decides which ones are important to students.

He will then bring up some of the bills to the Board of Directors, which are representatives from each of the paying universities, and they will decide whether to support or oppose the bill.

“I serve in this position at the pleasure of the board,” Starrett said.

After getting the board’s position on the bills, Starrett will call state representatives and testify before powerful committees that bring the bills before the general assembly. Sometimes, Starrett will be asked by representatives to amend bills toward student interests.

He said the ISA has successfully worked on bills dealing with tuition, student loans, voting registration, student grants and underage drinking.

But lobbying is only one part of the ISA’s job. ISA Field Director Brian Monohan said he works with campuses on referendums, writing campaigns, and training student leaders.

And each member of the Board of Directors receives a 50-100 page packet of information every six weeks about what is happening at state government.

So, David Starrett hopes he can bring all the schools together to form a powerful student union to show the Illinois General Assembly that “students are back.”