Students seeking to change NIU found a new venue Tuesday night.

Tuesday, as well as tonight, the Student Association, NIU’s student government, will be hosting mandatory informational meetings for students interested in participating in the SA Senate.

SA Speaker of the Senate Robert Batey and Election Commissioner Sarah Roman held the meeting to inform potential candidates about the open senate positions.

Junior textiles apparel and marketing major Kyle McGhee asked Batey how long it would take to make a change in a campus policy. Batey said it would all depend upon the amount of time and effort senators were willing to put into their legislation.

“Usually we have a meeting every Sunday at 6 o’clock. Meetings are about an hour to two hours long, not generally lasting longer than an hour and a half,” Batey said. “They deal with pretty light things in general.”

Meetings mostly concern organizational development and budgeting, Batey said.

Roman explained why she thought the informational meetings were mandatory.

“I think it’s so [candidates] can get the information, so once they do break a rule or get a sanction, we can say, ‘You were at the meeting, you know what’s supposed to happen. We answered all your questions right there.'”

In attendance was one former senator, Matt Venaas, as well as SA pundit Aaron Funfsinn.

According to the meeting’s sign in sheet, 27 students took informational packets.

Last year’s senate

The fall election resulted in 32 out of 40 seats filled while 36 candidates ran. Eight seats remained unfilled when the senate session began.

The 38th senate session ended with three senators expelled for attendance issues, several others leaving due to various commitments or December graduation and the death of Senator Daniel Christophe Jr.

The senate ended the year with over one quarter of its 40 seats unfilled; the senate was never completely filled throughout the year.