Use your voice to support NIU
The day-to-day efforts of NIU faculty and staff are vital to NIU's sustainability. However, the voice of our alumni, who epitomize these efforts, has proven invaluable to promoting NIU in their communities. You can strengthen NIU's voice in your community and keep your alma mater at the forefront of important conversations by volunteering for digital and in-person advocacy activities.
Join our grassroots advocacy program to stay in-the-know and give NIU more visibility in the Illinois state legislature. Volunteer advocates determine their level of involvement and can help in a variety of ways by simply staying up-to-date on NIU's legislative priorities, e-mailing letters crafted by NIU staff to local representatives, sharing NIU's legislative priorities and their "NIU story" with legislators, and much more! Check out our NIU Advocate Toolkit for a more in-depth look at the role of an advocate.
No matter your level of interest in engaging in advocacy, you can start your journey by signing up for our advocacy newsletter. Most online advocacy activities are organized through our advocacy platform, which can be viewed below! Please note that the platform works best with Google Chrome.
NIU Advocate Tools:
NIU Advocate Toolkit >
The NIU Advocate Toolkit is designed to help you identify what role you would like to play as an NIU Advocate and to provide you guidane in how you can fulfill that role. Each time you receive a communication from an legislator (e.g. a response to a message you sent through a digital campaign, an in-person meeting), please use the Legislator Contact Report Form to record the conversation so that we are abreadst of the conversation and can conduct any necessary follow-up.
Illinois House and Senate District Sheets >
Please use the "Find Your Elected Officals" tool at the bottom of this webpage to identify your house or senate district, then print your respective district sheet for meetings with a legislator. To ensure consistency in communication, please notify Liz McKee, M.S.Ed. '14 of your intent to connect with a legislator before you reach out.
Please note that legislative district footprint documents represent numbers that were pulled in Fall 2020
NIU Advocacy Program Staff >
We are here to support you throughout this process, so please do not hesitate to reach out! If you have a particular staff person with whom you'd like to connect, their information is listed below. For general inquiries, please e-mail advocacy@niu.edu.
Liz McKee '14 M.S.Ed., Director of Alumni Volunteer Engagement
E-mail: Lmckee1@niu.edu | Phone: 815-753-7400
NIU Caucus Members>
NIU is fortunate to have a group of dedicated legislators committed to supporting NIU. Please find a list of NIU Caucus members below:
Kelly Burke - (D) District 36
Timothy Butler - (R) District 87
Cristina Castro* - (D) District 22
John Curran* - (R) District 41
Don DeWitte - (R) District 33
Laura Ellman - (D) District 21
Maura Hirschauer - (D) District 49
Linda Holmes - (D) District 42
Jeff Keicher* - (R) District 70
Stephanie Kifowit* - (D) District 84
Anna Moeller* - (D) District 43
Bob Morgan* - (D) District 58
Joe Sosnowski* - (R) District 69
Steve Stadelman - (D) District 34
Brian Stewart - (R) District 45
Dave Syverson - (R) District 35
Maurice West - (D) District 67
Lance Yednock* - (D) District 76
*denotes alumnus/a