Alison Kostelich, student vice president for academic affairs, said she would cancel the Murder Mystery dinner if Student Senator attendance does not improve.

“I only have 32 confirmed guests to the teacher student interaction murder mystery dinner,” Kostelich said. “It will be canceled by Friday if the numbers do not double.”

Senator involvement was discussed heavily during Wednesday night’s Student Senate meeting.

Kostelich said members of Faculty Senate questioned her effectiveness in communicating to the senate about Tuesday’s faculty forum after several invitations were offered as well.

“We had perfect representative attendance with Angelina, Erin and myself attending the faculty forum, but only one other student showed up,” said Alison Kostelich, student vice president for academic affairs. “I just want to express the faculty senate’s disappointment because they wanted some student feedback.”

As for the Murder Mystery dinner on March 18, half of the 32 attendees are the faculty guests.

The event allows for 75 students to invite one university employee each, but only 16 of the 75 student spots are filled.

Kostelich said only five of the 16 students are from the senate, and the event is not a free dinner for the student government.

“If all the senators attend, then that would be half the needed people,” Kostelich said.

She then asked why senators voted yes to the resolution if they were not willing to support the event.

Levi Bulgar, student executive vice president, also questioned senator productivity when he answered questions about his resolution for 12 new computers.

“There is no reason why people are on Myspace in the office,” Bulgar said. “There are some things going on that have no university or SGA purposes.”

He said new procedures for how and when to use the computers will be developed, as well as how to maintain them.

A resolution to hire Scott Murray as the Student Government marketing director also sparked a senator involvement debate. Murray would get paid $10 per hour up to $500 per semester and senator Adam Martinelli asked why senator were not delegated such responsibilities.

He said appointments could be narrowed to attain senators with such skills. Bulgar said with current senator involvement, there would be even less incentive for the member to do good quality work when a paid consulted could be held to hirer standards.

Kostelich presented her concern of senators not distributing the produced fliers. She said she was the only person distributing fliers for her murder mystery event and now she is in a situation where the event may not happen because of low turnout.

Other senators questioned the means by which Student Senate Speaker Megan Ogulnick selected Murray as the recipient of the job and why he would get paid more than minimum wage.

Ogulnick said she knows him and has seen his work, but he is a professional consultant who charges twice as much to other companies for similar work.

All four resolutions were tabled until the March 19 meeting.

Rick Kambic can be reached at 581-7942 or at rwkambic@eiu.edu.

In Wednesday night’s Student Government meeting Executive Vice President Levi Bulgar explains that four new computers will not have speakers. (Zach Nugent/The Daily Eastern News)

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