A bill which would give the student representative on the Illinois Board of Higher Education the right to vote has passed the Illinois Senate and House of Representatives.

Students are represented on the IBHE and on university governing boards like NIU’s Board of Regents, but no student representative has full voting power.

NIU student regent John Butler said the lack of voting power causes student representatives to be treated like second-class board members.

“Student members have all other rights except the right to vote. Being able to vote makes everything worthwhile,” Butler said.

He said granting voting power to the student representative on the IBHE would be a win in the sense that the state would be moving away from such an “archaic system.”

The IBHE is the coordinating board of Illinois higher education’s governing boards. NIU belongs to the Board of Regents which also governs Illinois State University in Normal and Sangamon State University in Springfield. Each school is allowed one nonvoting student member.

Butler said that even if the bill is signed by the governor, it won’t lead to full voting power for the student representatives on the governing boards.

He said a more likely scenario would be a consolidated vote. For example, the Regents have three student members, instead of having three individual votes the students would have one vote determined by the voting majority of the student members.