LOSING STREAK
The Eastern men’s soccer team lost their 5th-straight match to Missouri State Tuesday. PAGE 7
HEALTHY HABITS
The HERC will be giving a presentation about healthy sleeping habits Wednesday. PAGE 2
THE
D aily E astern N ews
Wednesday, October 7, 2015 “TELL THE TRUTH AND DON’T BE AFRAID” C E L E BRATI NG A CE NTUR Y OF COV E RA GE 19 15- 201 5
VOL. 100 | NO. 33 W W W . D A I L YE A S TE R N N E W S . C O M
Popcorn roasting on the Thomas fire
Faculty Senate approves voting By Cassie Buchman Administration Editor | @cjbuchman A vote on the faculty’s confidence in Blair Lord, the vice president of academic affairs, will go forward following a petition started by faculty members. Faculty Senate is not sponsoring the vote of confidence or no confidence and are not telling faculty how to vote in either direction. According to their constitution, 20 percent or more of the faculty who are able to vote in faculty elections can petition the senate to hold a referendum on a question. The senate needs to hold the vote four weeks after it is brought up and the authors of the petition need to present the petition and explain the intended purpose of the referendum. Physics professor James Conwell and philosophy professor Gary Aylesworth spoke about the petition at the senate meeting Tuesday. Conwell said after he left the senate, several people approached him saying they needed to have an opinion on faculty governance and transparency. “Many times Old Main is not going to ask us this opinion, so I think we should give it to them whether they want to hear this opinion or not,” Conwell said. Conwell said this opinion was essentially on whether or not Lord has done a good job over the last 12 years and if they think he will do a good job in the future given the present circumstances. “I’m of the opinion that there are many shortcomings as far as transparency, governance, his choice of deans, essentially administration of the admissions department,” Conwell said. Conwell said when he asked how Lord allocated resources to his deans, he was not able to get a straightforward answer. “If faculty governance is to be true, we must have a person who will shed light on how they make their decisions, what their values are,” Conwell said. Aylesworth said he has seen support for doing this building. “I thought it was important to stress the petition is not a vote,” Aylesworth said. “It’s just calling for a vote.” What persuaded Aylesworth was talking to colleagues who are in what he calls the most vulnerable positions and seeing the difficulty they were in. “They were put in a very bad situation and they felt that they had no say in it, no way to participate in the process,” Aylesworth said. “I don’t want to see any of my colleagues in that situation where they’re vulnerable, they’re under threat and they have no say. This is giving people a say.” Jemmie Robertson, the Faculty Senate chair, offered the idea of having the vote in the first week of November during special elections in the fall. SENATE, page 6
JASON HOWELL | THE DAILY EASTERN NE WS
Firefighters with the Charleston Fire Department walk across the street to Thomas Hall to investigate an alarm caused by burnt food in the BSW break room at 12:04 p.m. on Tuesday.
JASON HOWELL | THE DAILY EASTERN NE WS
A Charleston firefighter prepares to enter Thomas Hall to investigate an alarm on Tuesday.
ROBERTO HODGE | THE DAILY EASTERN NE WS
Students return to Thomas Hall after an alarm forced evacuation on Tuesday.
City council votes on Funfest permanent bar hours to replace concert By Mackenzie Freund City Editor | @mgfreund_news
Charleston bars are officially allowed to stay open until 2 a.m. after the Charleston City Council voted to amend the ordinance at their meeting Tuesday. The ordinance was made permanent after Charleston Mayor Brandon Combs and Charleston city attorney Rachael Cunningham met with the holders of the liquor license. “I had a meeting with all of the liquor license holders, and at that meeting there were no complaints either,” Combs said. Combs said he had not heard any complaints about the later bar closing time from police officers or firefighters. The council temporarily passed the ordinance for the later bar closure times to see if it would help cut down on the number of parties. The amendment to the ordinance originally went through a six-month trial run and was set to expire on Aug. 1 and was extended to Oct. 1. The council also voted to pass the request for certain street closures for two different events
happening on Dec. 5. The requested street closure for Eastern’s fourth annual “Holiday Hustle” includes the area around Eastern’s campus. The route runners will begin at Old Main and run around the entire campus, including the area around University Court and a part of the neighborhood just south of Roosevelt Drive. Runners will also run the Panther Trail and head back to the finish line at Old Main. “The streets will not actually be closed to parking and traffic,” Combs said. Volunteers will be placed with stop signs at certain busy intersections to help people cross. The other street closure request that was approved was for the annual “Christmas in the Heart of Charleston” also on Dec. 5. The streets that were requested for closure are Monroe Avenue from Sixth to Seventh Streets, Sixth Street from Monroe to Van Buren avenues, Jackson Avenue from Fifth to Eighth streets, Van Buren Avenue from Sixth to Seventh streets, and Seventh Street from Van Buren to Madison avenues. HOURS, page 6
By Luis Martinez Entertainment Editor | @DEN_News
“Family Funfest,” a family version of UB’s “Up All Night,” will be the replacement for the concert. Three Dog Night, which was scheduled to be the Family Weekend concert, was canceled Friday because of health concerns with the band. Ceci Brinker, the director of student life, said the event would be free for students and their families. “We’ve just spent the last couple of days just lining up some live entertainment, some interactive entertainment,” Brinker said. “We’re just going to kind of just showcase stuff throughout the Union for three hours.” Brinker said there are three major activities going on during the event on Saturday, including an interactive game show, a ventriloquist comedian, and a hypnotist. “Family Funfest” is scheduled for 7 p.m. in the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union. Luis Martinez can be reached at 581-2812 or lpmartinez@eiu.edu.