DeKALB — NIU has a strong presence of Greek life within its Student Association; no student executives lacking a Greek affiliation have been elected since 2013.

The current Student Association regime features four members who lead their fraternities or sororities. Of the 11 directors of the different Student Association departments, six are a part of a sorority or fraternity.

“We hire based off of merit,” said Rachel Jacob, former president of Alpha Phi, as well as Student Association president. “If they were in a Greek organization, fine. But that’s not the only thing we look at. We’re hiring based off of who is the most qualified. It just turned out that over half of our directors ended up being Greek.”

Sid Kincaid, former SA senator, said he has concerns about SA candidates’ unfair advantage when collecting petition signatures. Kincaid filed a complaint April 29, 2016, against the SA for allegedly violating the Illinois Open Meetings Act when he was not a senator.

“The students who are in frats and sororities have an advantage over students who are not living in the dorm and students who are non-traditional in that they have larger social networks,” Kincaid said. “They go around their houses and pass out the petition. That’s not fulfilling the intended purpose.”

Kincaid said students getting all of their signatures from one portion of the student body can lead non-traditional students to go under represented in the student government.

“If there was a change, I would say keep the signature requirement but limit the number of signatures you can get from within your own district,” Kincaid said. “Try to get support from within the student body.”

Jacob said throughout her campaign, she was attacked for being a part of the Greek system.

“Greek students tend to be the most involved,” Jacob said. “If you look in our office, we have a number of honor students and members of other organizations. They’re usually active in their community, and they want to get their voices heard.”

Members of the Student Association are also active in other places on campus; Jacob is also apart of the honors program and the Southeast Asia club. SA vice president Khiree Cross is the president of Alpha Phi Alpha and a former president of the Black Male Initiative, a group on campus focused on ensuring the graduation of African American men.

“I work in the office of admissions, I already had experience in the administrative side of the university,” said Emily Schmidt, Jacob’s chief of staff and former Panhellenic delegate of Alpha Phi. “I was appointed because Rachel knew I could be trusted.”