Anyone interested in running in the Student Association elections for president, vice president, student trustee or treasurer positions must attend a mandatory candidate information meeting either today or Thursday.

The candidates meeting is tonight from 7 to 10 p.m. in the Holmes Student Center’s Illinois room, or from 8 to 10 p.m. Thursday in the SA office, Campus Life Building, Room 180.

Student trustee James Barr said students will be informed about the responsibilities of each position at the meetings.

“If you’d like to be a candidate, it is essential that you attend this meeting,” Barr said. “Each candidate must get 400 student signatures by Friday. Students who attend the Thursday meeting will only have 24 hours to get the signatures. It’s a hard thing to do, but it’s not impossible.”

During Sunday’s Student Senate meeting, roughly one-fourth of the budgets for the 2001-2002 fiscal year were approved by senators. Budgets requests are made by student organizations and then come before the Finance Committee. The committee then decides on the request and forwards an accepted amount to the senate for approval.

The budgetary process isn’t complete for those organizations, however. The entire budget must be approved at the end of senate approvals to make sure that the SA is not over budget.

The Student Senate also approved fellow senators Emiko Pope, Jeff Meyer, Ebony Simpson, Christobal Soto and Lisa New as this year’s board of elections. The board assists the election appeals board and the execution of the elections.

Pope was elected board chair.

“I think in the past, people thought SA elections weren’t run effectively,” she said. “Hopefully, as chair, I can change that.”

As well as appointing board members, senators approved three new senators, a director of governmental affairs and a director of cultural

affairs.

Edward Quin, now cultural affairs director, said he’d like to bring cultural awareness to NIU’s campus, as well as diversity.

Greg Budrow, now governmental affairs director, said he wants senators to help register voters.

“I’d like to have municipal nominees speak at NIU in March,” he said.

In addition, Christina Evans, Kevin Miller and Ebony Simpson were approved as senators.

There are five senator positions still open to all NIU students. Those who are interested can apply in the SA office.

SA President Ken Getty gave senators a list of SA executive, academic and student life, greek affairs, mass transit and public affairs goals for this semester. Goals include fighting for the rights of student tenants, a safety campaign and starting an online teacher evaluation system.

“We’d like to have a campaign focused to educate students on a variety of issues,” Getty said in his written presidential report. “This idea grew out of several injuries and fatalities early in the school year that could have been prevented.”