Dean of Students Kelly Wesener Michael spoke to the Student Association Senate at a meeting Sunday about the university’s use of Maxient.

Maxient, a recording-keeping software, has kept files of students involved in a number of situations, such as being the witness to a crime, behavioral concerns and others. Students involved in Greek life, athletics or CHANCE are automatically added to the system to ensure organizations’ distinct compliance standards are met.

Wesener Michael said university officials only share student information with other administrators if there is a concern about a student’s safety and security.

“Beyond that, we cannot by federal law recite information,” Wesener Michael said.

She said students should consider the use of public and private settings on all of their social media accounts.

“There is no ongoing watch of student media accounts,” Wesener Michael said. “If, however, something shows up on social media in a public profile and people have control over that, that shows that they might be threatening, that they might be potentially harming themselves or others, we are going to take a look into that.”

Maxient software is also used to track students’ safety and security. If officials are aware of a student who is struggling, or has disruptive behaviors, the Maxient system allows officials to reach out to that student, Wesener Michael said.

“If they are a part of the Greek organization, if they’re part of athletics, if they’re part of CHANCE, what we do then is we reach out to the advisors and say, ‘Help us. Partner with us to figure out ways [to] work with this situation,’” Wesener Michael said.

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Student Association Senate speaker Christine Wang said the city has acquired 912 Edgebrook Drive plans to possibly make it into a community center.

Wang also announced ComEd might be replacing 1000 light bulbs along N. Annie Glidden Road for free and could benefit other communities as well. Comed was originally going to replace 250 light bulbs.

Data collection for the 2020 Census is approaching, and the Student Association has been asked to help get NIU student responses.

“The census takes into account people who are living [at NIU] at that moment,” Wang said. “Students who are actually living on campus would be counted as part of DeKalb.”

The students who go back home but also live on campus would be counted as living in DeKalb.