Students may nominate staff, faculty or students for the 10th annual Ally Awards through the LGBT and Women’s Resource Center website up until 4:30 p.m. Friday.

The LGBT and Women’s Resource Center will host the Ally Awards to recognize allies of the LGBT community at NIU.

Nominees are not required to be trained allies. Anyone who has shown support for the LGBT community is up for an award.

Winners of the Ally Awards will be recognized at the awards ceremony along with this semester’s newly trained allies.

“What happens is someone will nominate an individual or even a group or organization and then we will review the nominations,” said Molly Holmes, director of the LGBT and Women’s Resource Center. “Pretty much anybody who is nominated and has a compelling reason is chosen to receive an award, and then we have a ceremony.”

For those who would like to become a trained ally on campus, training sessions are available.

“We offer four trainings per semester, and people can sign up by going to the LGBT Resource Center website,” Holmes said. “That is a two-part training, two hours each part, where participants learn what it means to be LGBT and also learn what they can specifically do in their area of influence to be a better ally.”

Allies are an integral part of the LGBT community. Staff and faculty who have become public allies on campus display a placard in their windows to let students know they have a safe space to speak freely.

Ally Sarah Ransom, office manager for the Department of Students’ Legal Assistance, said the ceremony is an opportunity to meet others who have completed the program.

“You’re with different people each time you go through the training. You don’t know who’s all going through it,” Ransom said. “To see familiar faces, to know that you’re not fighting this cause by yourself, that you have this wonderful group of people that have also taken stock and think that it’s an important cause to recognize each other and praise each other and know that you have the resources.”

Ally Angela Branson, acting director of orientation at the Office of Student Affairs and Enrollment, said the Ally Program provides comfort and safety for everyone.

“Every person who comes to school somewhere or every person as a member of society should have a place where they feel comfortable and safe and shouldn’t have to guess how someone is going to accept them or judge them or not,” Branson said. “And I think that is true of every single person no matter what their gender or sexual identity, race or anything.”

The turnout for the Ally Awards has increased as people have become more involved.

“Each year it gets bigger and bigger just in terms of people who attend as well as people who are receiving awards, so it’s really exciting to see that support expand,” Holmes said.