More than one-third of a $94,000 campus-wide mass e-mail information distribution system will come from the student-activity funded Student Association.

The SA senate Sunday approved funding of $34,000 for the E-mail Announcement System for You information distribution system.

Students signing up for the voluntary system can select from 13 different categories – with dozens of subcategories – and will receive e-mail announcements of upcoming events. Excluding students-at-large, SA-approved and departmental groups can submit events.

“As long as it’s not a kegger,” said SA President Craig Marcus during a “sneak peak” of the system for the senators prior to the meeting in a Founders Memorial Library smart classroom. Marcus said “gatekeepers” – faculty and staff from various departments assigned to each of the categories – will judge whether an event makes it onto the system.

Students must sign up for the system to receive e-mails and sign-up begins March 1 with the first e-mail announcements coming out April 1. Students who sign up before March 7 will be entered into a drawing for tickets to the March 9 Nelly concert at the Convocation Center.

The remaining $60,000 will come from four university divisions – $30,000 from Finance and Facilities, $5,000 from the Convocation Center, $5,000 from the College of Visual and Performing Arts and $20,000 from Information Technology Services.

“What we’re rolling out first is the subscription part,” said David Ihm, the software developer for ITS who built the system “from the ground up.”

ITS also will launch an updated version of the online NIU calendar with the system on April 1. The old calender was deemed obsolete, said SA Senate Speaker Andrew Nelms.

The senate was not informed of the new system or of the needed funding prior to the Feb. 20 meeting because of “confidentiality reasons,” Marcus said. The system contains student information from Registration and Records that eventually will be used to send mass e-mails to a particular slice of the student populace.

“The fact that you had the senate out of the loop on this for so long troubles me,” said SA Senator Andrew Becerra. He said even though the SA should support information distribution and approved of the system, he was concerned about the voluntary nature of the system and the negative press the system already has received.

Finance and Facilities also will fund maintenance of the system after the initial cost, Marcus said.

Students can access the system at www.easy.niu.edu.