Pass: The Gender and Sexuality Resource Center has brought gender pronouns into the spotlight, urging students to discuss transgender issues.

The Gender and Sexuality Resource Center has brought gender pronouns into the spotlight, urging students to discuss transgender issues.

The fact that this issue is being openly discussed could be big news for the transgender community as well as the NIU community as a whole. By talking about this topic, we can create a more open and accepting environment for everyone.

It is important that all students are able to express themselves as the person they are, rather than just the person they were born as. This topic has grown nationally but to bring it to campus shows the support those students deserve.

Instead of being scared to talk about gender pronouns, it’s best to be open about it. Teaching others and being willing to learn will only create positive change and keep students from being ignorant to ideas they don’t understand.

The Northern Star now directs its writers to ask interviewees for their preferred pronoun. Northern journalists are dispensed from determining whether the person they’re talking to is male or female, singular or plural — the subject of the article will be allowed to decide for him, her, them or itself.

Everyone deserves respect and by addressing these topics, more students will become aware and interested in knowing the facts.

Fail: Enrollment is down 5.5 percent.

President Baker said we can blame the enrollment decline on general Illinois population decline and the fact that Illinois has the second-highest national rate of high school students leaving state for college, according to a Sept. 8 Northern Star article. This is still a big issue for NIU.

After many program budgets were cut in the recent program prioritization report, it is important that we keep enrollment up before we have to cut even more.

Fall enrollment dropped about 5 percent. If this decline continues like this annually, it could mean bad news for NIU. Maybe the school didn’t do anything to make less students apply, but now staff must be creative in their efforts in order to get numbers back up to where they should be.

In order to get numbers up, plans have been made by the Board of Trustees Ad Hoc Committee to create partnerships with new community colleges. This along with no additional charge for tuition past 12 semesters will interest prospective students. Lowering the price of enrollment in general would be helpful considering the most recent NIU Data Book shows about a 60 percent increase since 2007.

Without the level of state support from higher education, our enrollment numbers will continue to fall. It is imperative that our enrollment numbers continue to rise throughout the next few years.