DeKALB — With unanimous approval, Khadija Sadia, second year doctoral candidate, became the newest member of the SGA’s Senate during its meeting from 5 to 7 p.m. on Sunday in the Holmes Student Center’s Sky Room.

During her introductory speech, Sadia said a lack of attention to detail makes students feel disconnected. One example she gave was the filtered water dispensers. Sadia said they should be placed in more prominent places, such as the entrance doors to the library.

“When I first came to NIU, I was excited to go to the library and, before I started exploring the library, I just wanted to get a drink, and it tasted like iron,” Sadia said. “Unfortunately, that was one of my first impressions here at NIU.”

Cabinet reports

There were four cabinet reports given by Director of Governmental Affairs Victor Owoeye, Director of Advertising Geowayne Williams, Director of Academic Affairs Amari White and Director of Cultural Affairs Rhaya Vaughn.

Owoeye said he’s been working on voter registration drives.

“We want to make sure we have students with the opportunity to register to vote in anticipation of the primary,” Owoeye said.

The department of governmental affairs and the department of cultural affairs has also been working together to show how culture plays a role in politics. A documentary for students of color about understanding legalities, detainment and Miranda rights will be shown on March 17, with a discussion on March 18 where they dissect the first episode, Vaughn said.

“It will be about knowing your rights as a student on- and off-campus, how to handle searches and specifically looking into what that’s like for students of color,” Vaughn said.

The city of DeKalb transit committee voted to allow commercial advertising on the buses, Williams said.

“Something I, myself, and the cabinet agree on is really having some sort of flyer or something on the bus that lets different student organizations as well as different businesses around DeKalb know that commercial advertising is big again,” Williams said.

White is looking into putting textbooks on tables in specific colleges for students to use — a sort of student texbook swap.

“Basically, if a student has a textbook that they are not using, they will be able to swap it out with another student who may have a similar textbook in their college,” White said.

Other Business

SGA voted unanimously in favor of granting Mock Trial $1,600 in supplemental funding for the opening round of the national championship. If they place in this tournament, they will move on to the national championship that takes place in Chicago this year.