Student Government Association (SGA) Senator Xochitl Jaramillo contacted The New York Times (NYT,) hoping to build a campus network with the newspaper company so the Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) population will have access to its resources. The proposal started when Sen. Paul Harris received a message from NYT advertising the newspaper’s application for establishing educational networks with college campuses across the U.S. Sen. Harris believed that this message was important, so he forwarded it to fellow Senator Jaramillo.
SGA President Jason Garcia was notified of this message, charged Jaramillo to contact the New York Times, and work at establishing this network. Jaramillo explained why developing this network is important. “New York Times is a world-recognized, prestigious newspaper. The Northeastern Illinois University campus should be allowed to have access to these kinds of resources.” Garcia also expressed a desire for this endeavor. “Other prestigious universities have access to NYT. Why not NEIU? We are a diverse university that has one of the lowest tuition prices and consistent quality of education compared to other universities. If they have access to these resources, then why shouldn’t we?”
“I also contacted the Chicago Sun-Times and the Tribune,” said Jaramillo. “However, the Sun-Times rejected the proposal because they already donated newspapers to the campus, and the Tribune did not respond to our call.” When asked why SGA has not contacted NEIU’s Department of Communications, Media and Theatre (CMT) and the campus newspaper the Independent, Garcia responded, “It’s a hard struggle to balance between domestic life, student responsibilities, and being a civil servant simultaneously. We have to worry about our priorities as well as working at instituting a foundation for this program to bring NYT to campus. Despite these obstacles, we look forward to working with the CMT department and the Independent to create this network.”
Paul Wilson, who is the coordinator of NYT Education Programs of the Midwest, and Norm Wave, who is the regional education manager for NYT Midwest, came to NEIU on Oct. 29 for a presentation to explain how networking with the newspaper would benefit the campus. Jaramillo detailed the benefits. “Not only would NEIU students and staff receive free issues of the NYT, but we have the advantage of bringing NYT journalists to lecture and speak on the campus, and create journalism workshops with the reporters to assist our fellow students who are pursuing a journalism major, and to help out the student staff of the Independent.”
Jaramillo and Garcia are to bring this proposal to an NEIU townhall meeting on Nov. 13 around activity hour. “The town-hall meeting is for students who want to speak about issues on campus and get their voice heard,” said Garcia. “We hope to bring this pitch to the students to find out how much support this program will get.”
“The first phase will be a four-week experimentation. NYT newspaper issues will be delivered to campus and is free for any student or staff member that wants to grab an issue. Each issue picked up will be about 45 cents; that price will be charged from our SGA budget.” Jaramillo said, “Our funding will be one-third of the SGA’s budget, another third from Student Activities Office, and the remaining third from departments that are relevant and interested in this program. With this funding, we can use it to bring journalism workshops to provide assistance to the Independent and NEIU students that seek a career in this path.”