The Environmental Awareness Committee is asking residence halls to conserve more energy.

“I’ve gone to a lot of the meetings with faculty planning and gotten all the numbers computed,” said Michael Andrews, a junior industrial technology major, “It is really an easy thing to do if you turn off all your lights, computers, circuit breaker cords, et cetera.”

Andrews presented plans for Conserve-a-Thon ’08 to the Residence Halls Association.

He said that the amount of energy that all the residence halls used up in 2007 was around 125-275 hours a person for each hall.

Andrews believes Eastern students can conserve more energy.

The Committee has planned other energy saving activities, as well.

“We (the Environmental Awareness Committee) have been collecting plastic shopping bags and been working with NRHH (National Residence Hall Honorary) for recycling and energy conservation,” Andrews said.

The halls are also setting up a new recycling program through NRHH.

“NRHH is in charge of recycling across the halls and every Monday and Thursday, we pick up recycling from the halls and announce it tonight,” said Becky Wilson, President of NRHH and senior English major.

Starting next Monday, all residence halls will be assigned a day to recycle on instead of having the option to pick from either Monday or Thursday. Wilson believes the switch will make the program more efficient.

Also at the meeting, Mark Hudson, director of housing and dining, shared with RHA members the precautions the housing and dining staff members are taking because of the snowfall.

“The buildings are pretty self-contained, so the only problem we usually have is getting staff that don’t live in the building to the residence halls, such as chefs or cooks. We want to make sure we have enough food in case the trucks aren’t able to come in as well,” he said.

The BSWs should get the most praise for taking care of the snow and the ice outside, Hudson said.

“We encourage everyone to be careful and watch for ice because it can get pretty slippery out there,” he said.

The next RHA meeting will be 5 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 7 in Stevenson Hall.

In Other News

Last year, RHA had 42 RHA volunteers at the Casino Up All Night, which was 85% of all RHA members

Concert tickets to Bon Jovi in Chicago will be given away at the Chuck Vegas Up All Night this year on Feb. 22

The RHA retreat for this weekend will meet today at 4:30 p.m. in Stevenson Hall and leave from there

There will be a Date Auction in Andrews hall basement on Tuesday, Feb. 5 from 7-9 p.m. to raise money for RHA scholarships

Heather Holm can be reached at 581-2544 or haholm@eiu.edu.