Pemberton to host student government meeting

By Kathryn Richter/Staff Reporter

Student government plans on moving its meeting places to different residence halls in order to reach students in their own living spaces.

Pemberton Hall will be the first location for the Student Senate’s “Senate on the Road” project on Oct. 12.

Carissa Dauphin, a sophomore communication disorders and sciences major, lives in Pemberton Hall.

“I think it would be beneficial to know what’s going on on-campus,” Dauphin said.

She said she would like to know what the student government is doing and how it is going to affect campus.

Dauphin also said she feels that word of mouth throughout Pemberton will cause more students to attend the meeting.

Marielle Sarkan, a sophomore marketing major, said she felt there may not be too many people attending, since Pemberton is such a small building and most events are heard by word-of-mouth.

Amanda Feder, a junior communication studies major, shares Sarkan’s view on attendance rates.

“I don’t know if it’s going to be a huge number,” Feder said.
Sarkan said there might be a bigger turnout if enough people are curious about student government.

Dauphin said that she would be willing to attend a student senate meeting if it was closer to her.

“If the meeting is in Carman, I can’t guarantee that I would go,” she said, “The closer the meeting, the more willing I would be to show up.”

Sarkan said she felt if the student government continued the “Senate on the Road” program in the future, more people would attend the meeting.

Feder said she was also unaware about the daily activities of the student government, but felt like it would be beneficial for students to attend so they could get a sense of what is going on.

Mary Lane, the student vice president of business affairs and a junior elementary education major said “Student on the Road” might make student government more accessible to students.

“Hopefully it will get more people to understand their welcome to the meetings,” Lane said.

Lane also said she felt it would be beneficial for students to attend the meeting, so more students would become aware of what the student government does.

Feder said she also felt some students would be more willing to attend the meeting since it is closer to them.

Alex Boyd, a junior political science major and a student senate member, said the “Student on the Road” meeting is a good way to increase student turnout and get more feedback from students.

Kathryn Richter can be reached at 581-7942 or kjrichter@eiu.edu

You are beautiful: An audio slideshow of Take Back the Night

By Danny Damiani

Click here to view the show

 

Outdoor café open

Staff Report

The Martin Luther King Jr. University Union will be opening its newly constructed outdoor café today at noon.

The union’s Java Beanery and Bakery will be providing food and beverages for those in attendance.

The café took less than a semester to build and is designed to provide students and faculty with a convenient outdoor seating area.
Giveaways will also be given to attendees.

DEN changes website

Staff Report

The Daily Eastern News will be changing its online provider Monday.

The new online provider is TownNews.com and the new website will be located at thedailyeasternnews.com.
The new website will allow more visual freedom and allow online advertising, which could be a potential revenue builder, Online

Editor Chris O’Driscoll said.
TownNews.com is an upcoming content manager for newspapers and is used professionally.

The same regulations and rules for commenting will apply for the new website.
The old website provider was College Publisher, which was made by MTV.

State owes Eastern $21 million

By Rachel Rodgers/Administration Editor

At this point, the state of Illinois has stopped making payments for Fiscal Year 11 and they owe Eastern about $21 million, said the university treasurer.

Paul McCann, treasurer, said they were told FY11 payments would be taken care of by the end of the year but they have not received FY11 payments for almost three months.

“Our total appropriation was about $47 million so they still owe us about 42 percent of that,” McCann said.

Even though the state is behind on FY11, the FY12 payments of about $7 million have been made on time, he said.
“It is nice to see that they are making timely payments, but it really does not make a whole lot of difference because they still owe us, at any given point, almost $21 million,” McCann said. “We are not digging a hole further but it is still an awful lot of
money from last year’s budget that they still owe us.”

McCann said the payment method for FY12 is opposite from what the state has done in the past. When the state was behind on FY10 payments, they paid those off before starting on FY11. This year, they are paying for FY12 but not the remaining amount for FY11.

“Right now, the state is somewhat behind the eight-ball also because they know that state taxes increased by roughly 60 percent, and they know they have that money coming in eventually, but then they have to make business and political decisions of who they are going to pay first,” McCann said.

To get by, they have borrowed from certain other funds on a temporary basis, he said. This also includes not hiring faculty, secretaries or administrators as others leave the university and cutting expenses.
He said cutting expenses includes not buying supplies such as computers and not doing as much construction on-campus.

“Unfortunately, I think it makes it difficult for a lot of the faculty who are not getting all of the supplies they might need,” McCann said. “We play a balancing game trying to keep enough money going into that process, but we do not always succeed.”
He said another aspect that is affected is when class sizes are expanded by an average of one person.

“At a cash standpoint we benefit by hiring less people, but at a student standpoint it’s a determent because there are more kids in each class,” He said. “We try to weigh that and make as little disruption as possible but we know, to some extent, that it is still present.”

McCann said they have borrowed from some unrestricted university funds to make up for the $21 million.
“Some of those might be some fee accounts that have accumulated over a period of time that we’d be able to use, but then at some point when we get the $21 million, we will reimburse those accounts,” McCann said. “There are certain pools of money that have legal restrictions on them like the bond revenue money students pay for room and board, and we can’t use them in the borrowing process.”

He said they have been diligent in being conservative by not spending money until they have it in hand.
“When a normal business gets behind this much they have to go to the bank or something to borrow, and we do not have that ability so we have to make operational decisions to limit how much money we spend to hopefully cover that $20 million,” McCann said. “It is a moving target because we don’t know what the state is going to do to us and when they are going to pay the $20 million.”

Rachel Rodgers can be reached at 581-7942 or rjrodgers@eiu.edu.

Colored shirts represent violence against women

By Samantha McDaniel/Activities Editor

Eighty-four shirts mean 84 students who are speaking out against violence against women.
The Women’s Empowerment League is having the EIU Clothesline Project, a unification project to connect Eastern students against violence.

Jeannie Ludlow, an associate professor of English and women’s studies, said the Clothesline Project is a national project to support anti-violence.

Students who were victimized or know someone who was, were able to make a shirt to hang to show their support for anti-violence.
Each shirt had a different meaning based upon its color.

White represents women who died because of violence; yellow or beige represents battered or assaulted women; red, pink and orange are for survivors of rape and sexual assault; blue and green represent survivors of incest and sexual abuse; purple represents women attacked because of their sexual orientation; black is for women attacked for political reasons.

“What’s cool is the color you can see symbolize all the violence people think about on campus,” Ludlow said.
Luis Alarcon, the vice president of the Women’s Empowerment League, said he thinks that it is important to show support for women who were victimized. Alarcon said he believes that no women should be sexually victimized and that is why he supports the Clothesline Project.

Alarcon said there have not been many students who stopped to see the display.
“Most people would think ‘what do they mean?’ Why do they have so many?,’ yet few stop by and ask questions about what they mean and their significance,” he said.

Ann Deters, a junior mathematics major, said she thinks the display is a good idea.
“It’s definitely catches your eye as you walk by,” Deters said. “The other day I purposefully walked out of my way to class to see what it is about.”

Steve Anderson, a junior political science major, said he has seen these displays before at his high school and his community college.

Anderson said these displays allow victims to speak out and be positive about their situation.
Deters said she was surprised by the number of students who had shirts hung up.

“The fact that it’s the people you go to class with and walking around campus,” Deters said. “It’s just the everyday people that you would never guess something happened to them.”

Samantha McDaniel can be reached at 581-7942
or slmcdaniel@eiu.edu.

Council elects two new representatives

By Robyn Dexter/Staff Reporter

The Council on Academic Affairs elected two representatives to serve on the Enrollment Advisory Committee and the Ad-Hoc Committee on Online Education at its meeting Thursday.

Lora Green of the Academic Advising Center was appointed as the CAA representative to the Enrollment Management Advisory Committee. This committee participates in enrollment management activities at the departmental, college and university level.

The CAA also appointed Debra Reid, a history professor, to the Ad-Hoc Committee on Online Education.
Blair Lord, provost and vice president for academic affairs, said the CAA is the last organization to appoint a member to the Ad-Hoc Committee.

The CAA also welcomed a new student member, Kaylia Eskew, a sophomore journalism major and Student Senate member.
She was appointed by the student government at its meeting on Wednesday, and she is the second student member of the CAA.

The grading methods for the Course Proposal Format were an item from the Sept. 22 CAA meeting to be acted on Thursday.
The new format is separated into whether the course counts towards a student’s grade point average and/or hours towards graduation. Members of the CAA unanimously approved the revision.
Gail Richard, head of the Department of Human Services, came to the CAA meeting to discuss revisions to the Language Acquisition course.

Richard said the course has always been taught on-campus, in person, and it has been revised to be more technologically available. This includes more electronic submissions for assignments and quizzes along with more online-related activity.

“We realized we hadn’t brought the technology component to the council,” Richard said.
The course syllabus now lists objectives for online formats, including WebCT. The CAA decided to change the wording of WebCT to “course management software,” because of WebCT’s discontinued use in Eastern’s future. The CAA unanimously approved the revisions to the Language Acquisition course.

Christopher Mitchell, chairman of the CAA, said there may not be a meeting next week because of a lack of items to be added to the agenda.

Robyn Dexter can be reached at 581-7942 or redexter@eiu.edu.

Eastern 12th on best college list

By Shelley Holmgren /Managing Editor

Despite enrollment struggles and financial strains, Eastern has been named one of the top public universities in its class by U.S. News and World Report for the 12th consecutive year.

Eastern is ranked the 12th among the public universities on the U.S. News’ “Best Colleges” regional list, an improvement from last year’s 14th spot.

Since 1983, U.S. News has been ranking universities all over the country for its annual publication.
U.S. News uses data from each university including campus and faculty resources, acceptance and retention rates and school reputation for the rankings.

To determine which category each university lies, U.S. News uses the Carnegie method that divides universities into several categories.

Institutions that offer a full range of undergraduate programs, some master’s programs but few doctoral programs, such as Eastern and Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, are ranked regionally.
Other institutions, such as University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, that offer undergraduate majors, master’s and doctoral degrees are ranked nationally.

Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin make up the midwestern region of the list.
Private universities dominate the top of the list – only 11 public institutions break the top 50, and Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo. was the only one to be ranked in the top 10.
Other public universities also saw a change in their rank this year. Western Illinois University dropped to No. 53 from No. 51 last year for the midwest regional rankings. Southern Illinois- Edwardsville experienced a substantial increase – jumping from No. 61 to tying with Eastern at No. 51.

President Bill Perry said although he is pleased with Eastern’s improvement on the list, the rankings are not a significant concern for university operations.
“The ranks are not our focus,” Perry said. “However, since other individuals do look at rankings and can influence the decision of where they will apply, it is always better to improve.”

Instead, Perry said the university will continue to seek improvement for all areas of the university – not just those ranked by U.S. News.
“Our focus is high quality education and to help students become lifetime learners and critical thinkers,” Perry said. “The U.S.

News and World Report system is fairly well understood, so the rankings come out based on the data.”
Blair Lord, vice president for academic affairs, agreed.

“The rankings are not the ‘be all, end all,’” he said.
Eastern continues to consistently boast high retention and graduation rates.

However, one category Eastern improved from last year was in the area of incoming freshman who were in the top 25 percent of their high school class.
For the 2012 rankings, Eastern reported 31 percent of top 25 freshmen, a significant jump from last year’s 12 percent.

However, this increase is actually due to a clerical error last year. Lord said there was an error reporting the percentage because of a change in student record procedures last year. Once the error was spotted, the office of academic affairs submitted a correction to U.S. News.

However, Lord said by the time the correction was submitted, U.S. News did not have the time to deal with it.
Lord and Perry both said they were uncertain whether this error could have a significant effect of the rating. The freshmen 25 accounts for 6 percent of the total score.

Although Lord could not give the exact accurate percentage for last year’s freshman 25, he said there was still an improvement this year.

However, Lord said it was difficult to determine a reason why there was an increase.
As for national rankings for other Illinois public institutions, the U of I ranked No. 45, followed by Illinois State University at No. 160, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale at No. 170 and Northern Illinois University at No. 194.

Shelley Holmgren can be reached at 581-7942
or meholmgren@eiu.edu.

More than 350 march on campus

By Rachel Rodgers/Administration Editor

Sarah Thoren, 21, leads the Take Back the Night march through campus Thursday. Thoren has been to every take back the night since she was 1 month old.(Danny Damiani | The Daily Eastern News)

Starting one month after she was born, Sarah Thoren has attended every “Take Back the Night” annual event, this marking her 21st march.

There were more than 350 people who marched throughout campus who held candles and chanted to demonstrate how they fight the aspect of sexual violence.

“For me, personally, growing up around this taught me about my rights as a woman, even as a little girl, and I think that it has educated me and empowered me,” said Thoren, a medical administration assistant major at Lakeland College. “I am my own person and

I am so thankful for this wonderful community that shows their heartfelt support every year.”
Thoren said one aspect that made this year’s event more unique than previous years is the fact that it was the last “Take Back the Night” for the director of the Sexual Assault Counseling and Information Service before she retires.

Bonnie Buckley, who has been the director of SACIS for 33 years, said she thought this year’s event had the most impact on others.
“We had the best ‘Speak Out’ that we have ever had and this is the first time we have a special guest speak,” Buckley said. “It was wonderful to see how people could open up and share what has happened to them in their lives, and hear how they feel supported.”
The “Speak Out” occurred after the march, and it was a campfire-discussion where people could choose to speak about their history of sexual abuse.

Guest speaker Chong Kim, who was sexually trafficked in the 1990s, said she had been to many “Take Back the Night” events, but she felt this was the best she had experienced.

“I love that this gave the opportunity for other women to speak out and share their stories, and have the chance to assist them in their journey of healing,” Kim said. “Even for those who didn’t share, they can still know in the back of their minds that they are supported.”

Kim said she thought it meant a lot to her that there were a lot of men present supporting an anti-violent cause.
“I think this event is crucial in that it gives victims the ability to get their voice back and not be afraid, and I love that feeling,” Kim said. “It gives them the reassurance that even though the world may fall apart, that we are still here standing.”

Kwame Patterson, a senior health administration major, said he thought “Take Back the Night” was a great way to give women
confidence and show them that people out there care.

“It is also great that men can see what women have to go through and we can show them that we are supportive,” Patterson said.
Erin Williams, a senior psychology major, said the event provided a camaraderie with other people and gave everyone the chance to speak their peace and share their stories.

“It is definitely empowering,” Williams said.

Rachel Rodgers can be reached
at 581-7942 or rjrodgers@eiu.edu.

RHA talks Prowl, debut leaders

By Ryan Baffield/Staff Reporter

Pemberton Hall resident Raquel Serrano, a junior nursing major, does a hall report Sept. 22 during a Residence Hall Association meeting in Ford.(Shea Lazansky | The Daily Eastern News)

The Residence Hall Association had a speaker discuss next year’s Prowl and debut leader recruitment at Thursday’s meeting.

The conclusion of the Resident On Campus Festival was declared a success, but a proposal to move ROC Fest later in the semester was also brought up.

Cordy Love, the assistant director of New Student Programs, said the hiring of Prowl and debut leaders is a critical part of
enhancing the transition process of the incoming freshmen and transfer students.

Love said the people selected are a direct reflection of not only the student body, but the administration and school.
If hired, all debut leaders are required to live on campus for the summer. While living on campus for the summer, these student leaders will assist during visit days, orientations and much more.

“We’re looking for students who love Eastern and who are naturally great student leaders,” Love said.
Love said the goal of the job is to welcome all visitors and possible new Eastern students to campus while allowing them to feel at ease.

He said it is important for these student leaders to make a good impact on visitors and to encourage them to enroll at Eastern.
On Oct. 11, New Student Programs will be hosting an informational meeting for students interested in applying for this position.

Love said students should come with an updated resume with at least two references from two Eastern faculty members.
“(If students) don’t have a resume, (they can) go to Career Services and they will be glad to assist you,” Love said.

To be considered a possible hire, all applicants must have at least a 2.5 cumulative GPA, while being in good standing with the office of Student Standards.

“We only hire a total of 20 students, 10 debut leaders and 10 senior prowl leaders,” Love said.

During the hiring process New Student Programs focuses on forming a well diverse staff, to further relate to Eastern’s demographic.
The hiring process consists of three steps. Applicants first will have an individual interview, followed by a group interview and an individual presentation for finalists only.

Students who apply must submit their application by Oct. 19.
To apply for a position, students can stop by the New Student Programs office located in the Martin Luther King Jr., University Union or apply online at http://www.eiu.edu/nsp.

The RHA meets every Thursday at 5 p.m.

Ryan Baffield can be reached at 581-7942 or rebaffield@eiu.edu.