FALL BACK
HOSTING THE SKYHAWKS
Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday so everyone will need to set their clocks back one hour.
The Eastern football team will host Tennessee-Martin Saturday for its final home game of the season.
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D aily E astern N ews
“TELL THE TRUTH AND DON’T BE AFRAID” Friday, November 4, 2016 C E L E BRATI NG A CE NTUR Y OF COV E RA GE E S T . 1 915
Workgroup Serenading with strings uses survey to support report
VOL. 101 | NO. 54 W W W . D A I L YE A S TE R N N E W S . C O M
By Analicia Haynes Managing Editor | @Haynes1943 Workgroup no. 1, focused on student services, agreed on recommendations for its report after asking for a weeklong extension. Rick Roberts, the workgroup chair, said Angela Vietto, an English professor and workgroup member, will type up the recommendations they decided on. Eric Davidson, the interim director of health services and workgroup member, was not in attendance but will write up his methodologies used for creating the survey that members used to help support their recommendations, Roberts said. The survey, which was sent out several weeks ago, asked for student input regarding what they thought about student services, what should be changed or what was good about them. There were two parts to the survey that garnered two sections of data that Roberts said support what the group is doing. The first section focused on the “qualitative” data about student services and the other focused on the “quantitative” data. Roberts read a quote written by a student from one of the surveys and that quote summed up what members concluded in its recommendations. The quote asked the workgroup to keep and maintain student services such as textbook rental, career and academic counseling and counseling. Roberts said the group could maybe use some of the things mentioned in the survey for their report because students used words like restructure, more specifically for the safety of students, which they are supporting as part of the “serve UPD charge” given to the group. Roberts also said one student thought career services needs help badly. “Overall, all of student services needs to be, what (the students) call very defined, easily accessible (and) in an easy to read map of where to go,” Roberts said. “I think that’s exactly at the heart of our message is that student services needs to be reorganized, if possible centralized.” Members agreed with what was said in the sur veys, and Heidi Hawkins, the assistant University Budget Officer and workgroup member, said she noticed the positive feedback within the comments. Survey, page 5
OLIVIA SWENSON-HULTZ | THE DAILY EASTERN NE WS
Bryce Teyshlar, a sophomore at Mattoon High School listens as Averi Ridgeway performs a song for him with her ukulele outside of The Jackson Avenue Coffee Shop on Thursday night during their Open Mic night where local musicians can perform.
Representative candidates talk issues By Cassie Buchman News Editor | @cjbuchman With the elections coming up and a state set in a gridlock, both candidates running for representative of the 110th district talked about their plans to rectify the state’s instability and lessen its effect on their district. Incumbent Rep. Reggie Phillips (R-Charleston) is up against Dennis Malak (D), who is currently the technical director for the Doudna Fine Arts Center. Both the candidates said the problems the state has are reflected in the
district. For Malak, the biggest issue facing the district is the lack of a full budget. “We’re still operating on stopgaps, it’s not a way to fund the state,” he said. Malak said it is hard seeing Eastern struggle month to month when the university has not received their full
stopgap budget and other universities received theirs. Malak said as representative, he would be fighting and calling the Comptroller’s office daily to make sure all funds appropriated to Eastern are released. To get a full, balanced budget, he said he would start working with other legislators on a budget that will emphasize the five key points a state is responsible for health, safety, education, social services and infrastructure. “What we need to do as a state is understand we need to prioritize
these five basic facets where the government has a contract with its citizens,” Malak said. Phillips said he is working on bills that would fund higher education, including one that would fund Eastern with an appropriation that would be 10 percent less than the one the university got in 2015. He said he asked for this amount as former Eastern President Bill Perry said this would be what the school could cut from its budget and still survive on in front of the higher education appropriations committee. Representatives, page 5
Workgroup talks project completion, staff By Cassie Buchman News Editor | @cjbuchman Workgroup no.5, charged with looking at facilities, talked about the project completions that need to be made and how to present their recommendations at their meeting Thursday. Workgroup chair Steven Daniels, department chair of the physics department, said at this point the group is considering a number of different recommendations in their draft materials. He said because those are not finalized materials, they are not at
the stage of going public with drafts right now and are considering the best way to report them. However, Daniels said the need for project completion is one thing the Workgroup can all agree on. “If you’ve walked across campus you’ve seen things I’m sure,” Daniels said. “We’re trying to get things repaired (because) we want the campus to be a showcase for students to come and have wonderful student experiences.” Matt Brown, associate director of facilities of housing and dining, said the idea of project completion and an investment in staff are supported
by the data. Daniels said the group has talked to a lot of people and there are a number of different ways and things they are considering. “We’re trying to consider all the facilities on campus: academic, health, facilities planning and management,” Daniels said. “We’re trying to consider everything around campus and come up with ideas that will help take the university forward.” Though Daniels said some things are more important than others, and that project completion is a top issue, Brown said it was a “chicken or
egg” scenario. Brown said while he agreed that the project completions have to be done, there are other aspects that need to be looked at and other things needed before they can be done. “Here’s the umbrella, you have to do this, this or this and here’s how to get it done,” he said. Brown said to work on project completions, there needs to be an increase of resources and the group needs to study the history and present conditions before giving recommendations on how to move forward. Facilities, page 5