Eastern held a rare meeting for Alpha Sigma Lambda (ASL) National Honorary Society this past weekend.

Twelve board members of the society came to Eastern from many different states such as Pennsylvania, Nebraska, North Carolina, Missouri, Florida, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

ASL describes itself in its mission statement on its Web site as, “We are an honor society which partners with colleges and universities to celebrate the scholarship and leadership of adult students in higher education.”

The organization certainly prides itself with its work as well as Frank Adams, ASL secretary and professor at Wayne State. He described how important it is that adult students get proper recognition for their efforts as students.

“Maintaining a 3.5 (GPA) or higher average as a student with the responsibilities of an adult is impressive and they deserve the recognition that they did a good job and that’s what we do,” Adams said.

While the national office has been held at Eastern for the past six years, this was the first time the meeting had been held on campus since the original Blair Hall burned down. Fittingly, the meetings held this past weekend were in the newly renovated Blair Hall in the seminar room on the second floor.

The ASL has a national board meeting every June according to William Hine, the dean of the School of Continuing Education.

Hine said he was happy to have the meeting on Eastern’s campus.

“It’s a great honor to have the meeting held on campus because it brings national attention to Eastern Illinois University,” Hine said.

On its agenda for topics to discuss for the weekend were new market strategies, by-law changes, ways to expand national chapters and others topics as well.

The most mentioned issue by the board members was how to make the chapters international.

Some of the places some new chapters may be opened up in are in Mexico and Canada.

Executive Director Kaye Woodward said she was excited to see the board taking on the issue of becoming more international.

She said that to allow these new chapters to be opened that there would be need to be revisions in ASL’s constitution, but many benefits would arise from the change.

“If the constitution is changed, then we’ll be able to build military and international chapters,” Woodward said.

ASL currently has over 300 chapters in the United States.

Woodward said she was also happy to see a possibility of strengthening the scholarship program.

The program currently is split into a society and a foundation. Woodward said that initially only foundations would receive donations and societies rarely did. So, ASL split into two arms, but now because of changes, the board is discussing merging the two branches together again.

“Some charitable institutions would only give donations to another foundation, but now, most of those organizations have changed and are willing to give donations to societies as well, which means the two branches can merge again,” Woodward said.

Some of the board members such as Judy Parr and Raymond Campbell said that Eastern has been accommodating during their stay for the meeting. They said they were impressed by the facilities.

“The new facility at Blair Hall has been delightful,” Parr said.

ASL member Raymond Campbell chats with fellow ASL members over drinks in the 1895 room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union. Seth Miller/The Daily Eastern News

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