Students from the Independent, Que Ondee Sola and Seeds pose with their publications in front of the WZRD radio bulletin board.

About the NEIU Student Media Board

The NEIU Student Media Board consists of representatives of Northeastern's four student media organizations: The Independent, SEEDS, Que Ondee Sola and WZRD. The NEIU Student Media Board believes that journalism and creative expression can be an outlet of improvement for all of our conditions. We are in a period of continual need for the marginalized voices to express our side of the communal narrative. We need more NEIU voices to contribute to this narrative. Want to join a NEIU media organization? Please complete: 

The NEIU Student Media Interest Form

Student Media Organizations

Northeastern Illinois University has established student media organizations as an integral part of its responsibility for enhancing student life. Student Leadership Development facilitates the work of four student-run media organizations:

  • The Independent, a student-run newspaper that covers campus news and features arts and human interest stories as well as opinion pieces
  • SEEDS Literary & Visual Arts Journal, a student-run, community focused publication which values access and innovative approaches to learning and scholarship
  • Que Ondee Sola, the oldest Puerto Rican and Latinx student-run magazine in the United States
  • WZRD, a 100-watt campus radio station featuring an eclectic “freeform” format of music, live performances and interviews, and news and commentaries on current events

Northeastern students and community members actively take part in student media work to inform and entertain our community.  Using multimedia formats, students produce content and broadcast and publish news, music, art, poetry, prose, opinion, current events to share our student and local experience for our community and the world. All media are accessible on the internet through their individual websites and can thus be accessed throughout the world. Students collaborate with the University community to express ideas, offer platforms and bring together all interested party reflect on our society in community dialogue.  

Through participation in student media, students gain hands-on experience and build their resumes and a portfolio of work. They learn through peer training from student editors, managers and directors as well as from working media professionals at events such as Meet the Media Night. Students in these four media organizations at Northeastern Illinois University develop and enhance the skills they gain in the classroom. Some students attend state and national conventions, where they receive critiques of their work, compete against other universities’ publications and learn from Pulitzer-winning journalists and acclaimed writers and media personalities, while other students focus on producing live local events all around Chicago.

Student Leadership Development and the student media organizations regularly partner with faculty and staff in the CMT (Communication, Media and Theatre) and English academic departments and the ENLACE and Proyecto Pa’Lante programs.  Meet the Media Night features presentations from each student media organization, plus a special guest speaker from the media to share advice and encouragement. In recent years, the NEIU Media Board has hosted guest speakers from top Chicago media outlets including WBEZ-FM (NPR), Newsradio 780 WBBM, the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, CAN-TV and the Suburban Journal and Topics Media Group.

The NEIU Student Media Board, which consists of student representatives from each media organization and their chosen faculty/staff advocates, supports a nurturing environment for University-supported, student-run media of print, broadcast and their online components to affirm the value of freedom of expression and diversity of opinion. The Student Media Board also facilitates working partnerships between the media organizations.

Per the Illinois College Campus Press Act and the SGA Student Bill of Rights, the work produced by our student media organizations is free from censorship and is not subject to prior review by University officials.

Phone: (773) 442-4664

Email: drsagel@neiu.edu