Student Senate voted unanimously to advertise an opportunity for parents on campus to complete a survey gauging the need for a day-care center at Eastern.

The senate is in the final stages of creating a questionnaire for Eastern students who have children, said Ryan Berger, speaker of Student Senate.

“(There are still) a few details we have to work through to make it a solid survey,” Berger said.

The senate will submit its survey to the Student-Parent Association for revisions before distributing it to students, said Dirk Muffler, senate vice president of Academic Affairs.

Eastern does not keep a record of parents enrolled, Berger said, and senate members asking around their classes to find potential participants won’t be enough to estimate accurate numbers of parents on campus.

“We really don’t have a way to get the survey to people who need it,” Berger said.

Senate plans to use approximately $111 from its budget to pay for advertisements in The News “in order to reach both on- and off-campus students,” Berger said. The senate plans to run the advertisement over two days “depending on when (senate members) think the most students will be on campus,” Muffler said.

Names and addresses will be gathered and surveys will be sent to students through mail and e-mail, Muffler said. The senate does not have a set number of surveys to distribute.

“Ideally, we’d just like to figure out how many students (at Eastern) have children,” Muffler said.

Eastern’s continuing education department currently has a similar survey on its Web site (http://www.eiu.edu/~adulted/) to contribute to the senate’s evaluation of parents enrolled and accommodate students who are not often on campus, Muffler said.

Student Senate meets at 7 p.m. Wednesdays in the Arcola-Tuscola Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.