The following is the response to a Northern Star questionnaire sent to all SGA candidates. Answers have been lightly edited for clarity and consistency.

Acosta is running for the president position in the executive branch.

Name: Brian Enrique Acosta

Year in school: Junior

Major: Finance

Hometown: Vernon Hills, IL

Why do you want to be part of SGA?

I want to be part of SGA in order to learn more about the concerns and needs of the students at Northern. I have been informed of many issues that I believe need to be addressed and I believe this is a great outlet for me to help students be heard.

What do you hope to accomplish during your term?

During my term, I would like to work on three major goals. My first goal is to work on inclusivity on campus, specifically for non-traditional students (24+ years old, single parents, international students.). My second goal is to promote emotional and mental awareness on campus and see how instructors can help alleviate some of that stress. Lastly, I would love to be able to work with other clubs in order to help create more scholarship funds for undocumented students, DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipients and international students, given they do NOT qualify for FAFSA.

Why should students vote for you?

I am genuine and naturally interested in fixing what I believe to be broken or what I believe could be improved. I grew up in a humble environment with immigrant parents. I lived in Memphis Tennessee for 5 years and then moved to Illinois. I had the chance to go to great high school, ranked top 10 in the country for a while, but they always looked down on community college. Being financially crippled, I went to my local community college where I had the chance to meet an insane amount of great people and graduated with my associate degree. In addition to meeting great people at my community college, I had the chance to serve for SGA there. Being a senator gave me experience and helped me realize I wanted to keep serving students and help them engage with me. I then went to Mexico to care for my grandfather that passed away from Diabetes and came back to transfer to Northern. Here I hope to bring my experience, compassion, and leadership to look out for all of you. I will always be open to meeting with students that have an issue and try to address it directly.

What do you think is NIU’s biggest area of improvement?

Although I have not been around much at Northern, I have listened to many classmates suggest NIU needs to improve on emotional stability and minor things like cleaning sidewalks better. Students would also like to take look into where their tuition money is going and see If we could somehow allocate some of that money for access codes.

Why is student government important to you? Why should the student body care about it?

Student Government is important to me because without this organization we the students would not have student representation in any meeting with faculty. In these meetings our senators attend, they speak for the students and let faculty know how the students feel about the issues. Therefore, I would advise every student to come to us, join us and let their voice be heard. There is no way for SGA to know what the students want without the students communicating with SGA. Do not let your voice be silenced, speak up and help us create a better future for Northern Illinois University.

The Northern Star is publishing the candidates’ responses to our questions as they are given to us. The Northern Star is not endorsing SGA candidates.