DeKALB — Speaker of the Senate Brad Beyer announced Devonté Fuller resigned from his Senator position recently, so he was not present at the Student Government Association Senate meeting Sunday.

This leaves 15 vacancies open for Senate positions in the SGA. It is Beyer’s top priority to fill these vacancies, Beyer said in an Oct.12 Northern star article.

“I would like to publicly thank [Fuller] for all the time he has given,” Beyer said. “He served last year as Sergeant at Arms and he’s been really active at SGA, but I think his time had run its course and he was ready to move on.”

More student organizations approved

Four student organizations were unanimously approved by the SGA Senate: the Good Girl Movement, the NIU Institution of Industrial and Systems Engineers, Sunrise DeKalb  NIU and NIU Pink.

The objective of the Good Girl Movement is to unify and empower women based on their six pillars of sisterhood, leadership, academia, cultural competence, and mentorship, Diamond Williams, president of the Good Girl Movement said.

“[Cultural competency] is the pillar that our campus needs the most to be unified,” Williams said. “To do that, we are required to educate our neighbors on what it is like to be a black woman or a woman of any race. We have to make it our duty to not only educate others about our culture but also educate ourselves about others.”

Students who wish to join this organization are encouraged to maintain a 2.5 GPA and, when part of the Good Girls Movement, are required to complete at least 20 hours of community service, Williams said.

The NIU Institution of Industrial and Systems Engineers is working towards both professional and committee growth within the Industrial and Systems Engineering major, Madalynn Derro, president of the NIU Institution of Industrial and Systems Engineers said.

Their club has a global component that allows students to participate in virtual events, such as giving members access to job boards, virtual workshops, and meeting different professionals in the field, Derro said.

“We received an award from the global component for being the most innovative chapter,” Derro said. “That’s because we got switched to online and we were able to still do our meetings through [Microsoft] Teams and still have our students come to resume workshops online.”

The Sunrise movement is a part of a political movement of young people to demand political action on climate change, Andrew Tillotson, healthcare coordinator for Sunrise DeKalb, said. It is an environmental group, focusing on people under the age of 35, and demands a Green New Deal, which is a policy that grants a sustainable future.

“We acknowledge the connections between environmentalism and confronting corporate power, colonialism, racial injustice, and, certainly, there are environmentally minded people at NIU,” Tillotson said. “I know there are political groups at NIU, but I think Sunrise DeKalb is a kind of fun intersection of those two things.”

Sunrise DeKalb has done cleanups, been active in the Black Lives Matter protests and worked to endorse different Congressional candidates to stay both environmentally and politically involved, Tillotson said. 

“There is a difference between Sunrise DeKalb at large and Sunrise DeKalb NIU,” Tillotson said. “Sunrise DeKalb NIU is specifically for people at NIU who want to get involved and work on things at NIU, whereas Sunrise DeKalb at large is for the greater community. I anticipate that these two groups will interact a great deal.”

NIU Pink, another student organization approved by the SGA, wants to empower women on campus and to provide a safe space for open conversation in order to celebrate girl power, discuss mental health and celebrate self-love, Eyonna Reynolds, campus representative for NIU Pink, said.

“Our recent events have been Zumba classes, DIY mood boards, movie nights and Girl Talk meetings,” Reynolds said. “We also did a scavenger hunt around campus, and stayed safe by passing out masks and hand sanitizers to students who didn’t have one.”

NIU Pink is an organization primarily looking for access to space on campus and looking to become an organization that women can confide in on campus, Reynolds said.