Student Association Adviser Tom Ellett got the ISA ball officially rolling this week.

Unfortunately for NIU students and the SA, the hill is extremely steep.

Ellett, the Political Education and Action committee adviser handed the SA the 1,259 signatures needed to put the ISA on a referendum.

Now is when the real work begins. The SA is staring at one of its biggest challenges of the year.

The Illinois Student Association is a group purporting to represent students in Springfield.

What it actually does is a mystery. A mystery the SA must uncover.

ISA officials say the group lobbies state representatives to vote for student interests. Officials also maintain the job is done dirt cheap—a buck a student.

The group points to the fee as even being a bigger bargain because it is refundable.

SA senators must prove to themselves and to the rest of the student body the ISA is worth the dollar.

The deck seems to be stacked against the SA—and students— because it is difficult to fathom that a student lobbying group is workable.

Odds get worse when the SA has to do something difficult out of its weekly meeting routine.

A successful student lobbying group is difficult to buy because students generally don’t vote and don’t contribute to campaigns.

As a basic rule of thumb, elected officials don’t feel the pressures of thousands of people voting them out of office because school tuitions keep going up.

That’s combined with the bickering and confusion the SA has mustered within itself. Add in for a little spice that a vast majority of those on the SA were not there when the issue last came up.

That’s important because many over there on the SA are starting from the same point we are—in the dark.

Apparently, the SA decided the referendum must be held before March 8. That’s not a lot of time, especially looking at this year’s track record the SA has on holding elections.

In the meantime, the SA must do its best to inform the students on what the ISA is and what it does for students.

The SA could take the easy way out and sit on their collective duffs. It’s been done before and it is extremely easy.

It works because NIU students are primarily apathetic. Most students feel the energy needed to find out what the ISA is all about isn’t worth a buck. Heck, it’s refundable anyway.

Which, by the way, government officials know too. It is yet another reason why the ISA might not work.

The SA has been catching a lot of heat lately. From ghost senators to those quitting by the droves to general incompetence, SA people are dropping like flies.

This is a chance for the SA to redeem themselves. A job that fee-paying students shouldn’t have to beg so it will be done right.

It might be only a dollar, but it truly will test if people joined the SA for the students’ interest or their own.