Eastern News
Monday
“Tell th e t r u t h a n d d o n ’ t b e a fr a i d . ”
T
H
E
D
A
I
L
Y
SEPTEMBER 24, 2012 V O LU M E 9 7 | N o. 2 5
EASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY CHARLESTON, ILL. D A I LY E A S T E R N N E W S . C O M T WIT TER.COM/DEN_NE WS
Students work in classes as nude models
Panthers go for 2, get win
Page 3
Page 8
Emergency landing at Sister City Park
DOMINIC BAIMA | THE DAILY EASTERN NE WS
Charleston Fire Department loads an unidentified male victim into an Air Evac Lifeteam helicopter headed for Carle Foundation Hospital, a level-one trauma center in Urbana, on Sunday at Sister City Park. The victim was involved in an accident, believed to be a dirt bike accident, south of Charleston, said Assistant Fire Chief Steve Bennett.
C AMPUS
Board of Trustees approves union contracts, upgrades By Robyn Dexter In-depth Editor
The Board of Trustees approved a four-year faculty contract that includes a 1.5-percent pay increase and changes to summer pay and the faculty rotation schedule for the summer at its meeting Friday. Eastern’s chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois Local 4100 ratified the tentative agreement on Sept. 17, which will affect more than 650 employees in the bargaining union. Roger Kratochvil, the chairman of the board, said the agreement is effective Sept. 1, 2012, through August 31, 2016. For summer courses, all faculty will be paid a rate of 78 percent of the member’s monthly salary for the first three years, and the pay will increase to 80 percent in the fourth year of the contract. The board also approved the upgrade and purchase of new wireless networking equipment as well as the purchase of new books and online resources for Booth Library. William Weber, the vice president for business affairs, addressed the board on the need for new wireless networking equipment. He said Eastern had a major networking upgrade in 2004 to the infrastructure, and the equipment from then is beginning to deteriorate. “We have in place a four-phase plan for replacing and upgrading our various network switches,” he said. “This purchase would be for phase one of the upgrade process.” The process will cost $305,0169.50 and will be put in place over the next few years. The board also addressed the addition of new resources to Booth Library. This is a purchase made annually and includes addition of books, journals, databases, abstracts, indexes, yearbooks and newspapers, and is not limited to just print, but to electronic media as well. Weber said Eastern has been doing business with EBSCO Information Services for many
years and that EBSCO’s online research databases are some of the primary content providers in Illinois. “Through this purchase, our faculty, staff and students get access to a wide variety of journals and other publications,” he said. The amount, which is not to exceed $725,000, comes from appropriated funds. Allen Lanham, the dean of library services, said the library has been moving toward electronic resources because patrons can access them all over the world. This sparked discussion with the board about the benefits and downfalls of electronic resources over print resources. “The decision for the library here at Eastern to move to electronic access is for the convenience of faculty and staff as well as for the actual library, because we don’t have to have print journals on the shelf,” he said. President Bill Perry said the most important thing about library resources is access. “Electronic resources at our library or at any library in the consortium save us money and time that we can invest in our students,” he said. Perry said another benefit of electronic resources is space. “If you can buy things electronically, you don’t have to have that shelf space,” Perry said. “We will always want certain resources like historic books to be in print, but if you’re able to get more resources electronically, you don’t have to worry about expanding the library someday.” Labor agreements for the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 399 and the Teamsters Local were also approved. The board delayed the approval of a boardpolicy amendment proposal involving public comments until its next meeting, to take place at 1 p.m. Nov. 9 in the Grand Ballroom of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union. Robyn Dexter can be reached at 581-2812 or redexter@eiu.edu.
COURT
Fourth hearing set Staff Report
A status hearing in the child pornography case against Eric L. Knuth, a former Information Technology Services employee, is set for 9 a.m. Monday. This will be the fourth status hearing since the case went to court in November 2010. Knuth is charged with displaying an image of child pornography on a laptop in December 2008. The record states that Knuth “displayed on an Apple MacBook Air an image of two girls (Knuth) knew or reasonably should have known to be under the age of 18…depicting the unclothed genitals and partially developed breasts of the girls.” According to a heavily redacted report by the Governor’s Office of Executive Inspector General, Knuth used his university laptop to download pornographic images, including some that were animated. Knuth was arrested Nov. 16, 2010, after the OEIG investigated and found 1,665 sexually explicit files on his university laptop. More than 300 of them were animated images of children engaging in sexual activity, according to the report. Two hearings occurred this summer, including a pre-trial hearing Aug. 6 and another hearing July 16.
CIT Y
Students clean up lake By Al Warpinski Staff Reporter
Mattresses, old tires, rusty metal bed frames and dozens of beer cans were just some of the trash picked up at Lake Charleston on Saturday. The event, titled “Clean up Lake Charleston,” was sponsored by the Geoscience Club and the Earth Science co-ed Fraternity, Sigma Gamma Epsilon. More than 25 students helped pick up trash all around the lake, and by the end, students filled more than 30 bags with garbage. Kara Baker, a senior earth science major, said she felt she needed to do something about it. “I came to Lake Charleston with my friends three times this past summer, and every time we came, the water level kept going down, and more and more garbage kept appearing,” she said Baker told Diane Burns, the adviser of the Geoscience Club and a professor of geology and geography, about the alarming amount of garbage around the lake. Burns told her to run with it. “Kara got the ball rolling and just went with it,” Burns said. Burns said the club used to clean the lake every year, but a few years ago the event fizzled out and has not been done since. Baker organized a “Clean up Lake Charleston” Facebook group, coordinated four clubs from the geology/geography department, contacted the Charleston Parks and Recreation Department to reserve a time and booked a band to play during the clean-up. Despite the amount of volunteers, the clean-up still took more than three hours. John Zearing, the president of Sigma Gamma Epsilon, said he was shocked at the amount of garbage. “You know there is gonna be a lot of trash to clean up when the 'Do not litter' sign is surrounded by beer cans and Taco Bell wrappers,” Zearing said. Zearing said he did not realize how much garbage was around the lake.
“I think it would be awesome if we could clean the lake once a semester, but it would be even more awesome if we didn’t have to clean up the lake at all.” Kara Baker, senior earth science major
“It sucks that people treat Lake Charleston like this,” he said. Kaitlyn James, a sophomore geology major, agreed. She said she wanted to do something about the trash and help out. “We're geology majors,” James said. “I feel we're partly responsible to make sure the earth is clean.” After three hours of picking up trash, 32 large trash bags were filled. Bigger items like mattresses and rusty metal pieces were collected, piled up and placed near the trash heap. Baker led the way in separating plastic, glass and aluminum to be recycled. She said cleaning up the lake is just a small step to a cleaner environment, and it gets the word out to Eastern students, who might have never visited the lake, to come check it out. “It's actually a really pretty lake, and not many students know that,” she said. “I think it would be awesome if we could clean the lake once a semester, but it would be even more awesome if we didn't have to clean up the lake at all.” Al Warpinski can be reached at 581-2812 or apwarpinski@eiu.edu.