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

Student Association President Rob McCormack said he is overwhelmed by all the information coming from the Illinois Student Association.

“I am still sorting through a lot of the information,” McCormack said.

For the board meeting in February, McCormack got a 100-page packet full of minutes from past meetings, a report about the new committees in Illinois government, articles about college spending and the ISA affirmative action policy.

The packet also carried Gov. Jim Edgar’s State of the State Address from February, Attorney General Roland Burris’ first opinion this year about the open meetings act, ISA numbers about university spending and a survey about how freshmen feel about college.

Along with the pile of papers, McCormack sat through 12 hours of meetings with other college directors during the weekend. “I thought the meetings were very productive,” he said.

With all the information from reports and meetings, McCormack needs to organize it and find out how it will benefit NIU. So far, he is impressed.

McCormack talked about numbers put together by the ISA that “give us ammunition as to NIU’s funding.”

The numbers show that during the past 10 years, spending by the Board of Regents on research rose 283 percent while spending on teaching rose only 23 percent, a 12-1 ratio.

Facts like that can leave Regents officials trying to explain why they want to raise tuition, McCormack said.

Also, McCormack found out the ISA is working on a bill that could allow state money for NIU’s bus system. If the bill passes the General Assembly, students would have to pay less for bus service each semester.

But earlier in the year, information was not as easy to come by. Practically the only mention made of the ISA in the NIU SA Senate meetings was about the referendum and criticisms.

The criticisms centered around the lack of contact between the ISA and NIU. “The organization has been around for a while and it is not going anywhere,” Tanya Smith said in response to ISA problems last year. Smith is the SA vice president and former ISA director for NIU.

But later, Smith was threatened with impeachment, and one of the reasons listed in the impeachment notice was because Smith did not pass along ISA information.

Smith was not impeached, but she was replaced as ISA director by Tom Ellett, Student Political Education and Action Committee adviser. Now, McCormack will be the NIU representative for the rest of the year.

Sen. Kelly Marie McDonald, who is ISA’s field director for NIU and a presidential candidate for next year, said having the ISA available would help in her possible presidency.

“ISA has a lot of the information and the legislative ability to help me and to help the students,” McDonald said.

Senate Speaker Preston Came, McDonald’s opponent, put up a resolution supporting the ISA that was passed Sunday.

“The state legislators are not being very kind to us because they don’t believe students vote. We need a lobbyist down there lobbying for a student cause,” Came said.