Three months after the Board of Regents approved a $1 refundable student fee to support the Illinois Student Association, the ISA plans to lobby for the legislation aimed at making NIU independent from its governing board.

The Regents govern NIU, Illinois State University in Normal and Sangamon State University in Springfield.

The Regents approved the ISA fee, which will be collected beginning this fall for a two-year period, on Jan. 26. ISA networks college students, informs campuses of student issues and lobbies for student issues.

On Wednesday, the Illinois House of Representatives Higher Education Committee will discuss a bill sponsored by John Countryman, R-DeKalb, which calls for the creation of a separate governing board for NIU.

Student Association President Paula Radtke and the ISA plan to testify in favor of the bill supporting a separate board at the meeting.

However, ISA Executive Director David Starrett said the ISA is not in favor of a separate governing board. Rather, the ISA supports a re-examination of the system of systems, which includes Illinois’ five university and college governing boards.

Although the ISA opposes the separate governing board, the organization is “very serious” about examining the system of systems and testifying for a separate NIU governing board is the only way to get the Illinois legislature to re-examine the system of systems, Starrett said.

The ISA also supports an almost identical senate bill calling for a separate NIU board sponsored by Sen. Patrick Welch, D-Peru, he said.

adtke said, “The system of systems has to be re-examined by pulling out one thread in this tangled web.” Untangling the web begins with separating NIU from the Regents, she said.

Starrett said the ISA’s favoring of the separate governing board bills will allow the legislature to look at the system of systems in a meaningful manner and “not a window dressing look.”

Radtke said when the Regents discussed the ISA fee in January, the board wanted to mandate that the ISA would not lobby against the Regents. She said, “I never said the ISA would not lobby (for a separate governing board).”

Radtke always has supported the idea of a separate governing board, because “the Regents do not serve the best interest of students,” she said.

Starrett said the majority of the ISA board does not agree with Radtke that NIU should have its own governing board. He said the ISA’s position on a separate governing board has not changed.

Regents Chancellor Roderick Groves could not be reached for comment Monday.

The ISA decided Sunday to become involved and lobby for the bills calling for a separate NIU board because two members within the system of systems denounced it, stating it is “expensive, redundant and ineffective,” Radtke said, who also is NIU’s board director for ISA.

The system of systems costs about $15 million a year, Radtke said, and members do not criticize Gov. James Thompson’s budget cuts to higher education. She said members in the system of systems also hires staff that students have access to at each campus such as a student affairs position.

The SA Senate passed a resolution supporting Countryman’s separate governing board bill on Sunday. SA Senate Speaker Phill Buoscio said the resolution will be taken to Springfield to help testimony supporting a separate board.