In one day at the University of Illinois, you can see some pretty exciting things.

For starters, Vice President Joe Biden visited our campus today to participate in the Illinois Student Senate’s “It’s On Us” rally. It’s On Us was launched last year by the Obama administration to campaign to raise awareness for sexual assault on college campuses. The campaign urges students to commit to speak up about sexual assault, whether they are a victim or a witness.

The Illinois Student Senate has been active in the campaign for the past year. Once it was announced that Joe Biden would visit UI to speak, the campus was buzzing in preparation for this high profile visit. Tickets to the rally were limited and ran out by the end of the day on April 21.

Today, classes were considerably more empty and everyone was talking about the vice president’s visit. Unfortunately, by the time I went to pick up my tickets a few days ago, they were already gone. But I made sure I got to see the next best thing, the motorcade taking Biden to the location of the rally. It was a pretty cool sight to see.

 Biden’s speech focused on the role of men in this problem that is very present on college campuses, and urged everyone to do what this campaign focuses on: speak up, even if it’s not the easiest thing to do.

But that’s not all. On a side note, Illini Chabad brought a camel to the south quad to celebrate Israel Independence Day. Students waited in line to either sit or ride on the camel, who also provided for a great photo op.