Student Association members admit the voting process was not organized for tomorrow’s Student’s Choice Awards, which cost $1,500 in student fees.

The Student’s Choice Awards, a new system to recognize hard working NIU employees, will hold their awards ceremony at 3 p.m. today in the Holmes Student Center’s Heritage Room. The SA created the SCAs in February.

The awards ceremony will feature 10 awards, including awards for operating and supportive staff, faculty and staff within Student Affairs and faculty and staff outside Student Affairs.

Gathering votes for the SCAs was not an easy task for the committee, because the group had not done anything like this before, said Jarquetta Egeston, an SCA committee member.

“It was kind of weird and kind of hard,” Egeston said. “It was more trial and error, so we know what to do better next time. It was nothing too structured, which is where we messed up on.”

The voting process was broken up into two rounds.

In the first round, committee members split up various campus buildings and had members talk to students as they were leaving classes. After compiling the names in the first round, committee members compiled a list of duplicated names. Students then were solicited again to vote from that list of names for the awards. Polling of students started in February, and about 75 students participated, Egeston said.

Next year, the voting process will be different and will include plans to have nomination forms available in the SA office, Egeston said.

“It cost money to do the SA elections,” Egeston said. “It will be hard to watch duplicates, so I am not sure yet.”

SA President Craig Marcus said the executive staff came up with the idea for the SCAs during a brainstorming session after winning last year’s election.

The idea behind the SCAs is not something new, but was something Marcus wanted to do to honor the employees of NIU, he said.