Eastern’s Faculty Senate will be announcing its Distinguished Faculty Award winner today.

Faculty Senate Chair Lynne Curry said to choose the winner; a committee reviewed applications for the award and made a recommendation to the rest of the senate. The faculty senate then endorses the committee’s decisions.

“It’s always really wonderful to be able to recognize somebody for their work,” Curry said. “My understanding is that they had a number of really outstanding applications.”

Each year the faculty senate presents two awards. During the fall semester, the Luis Clay Mendez Distinguished Service Award is given to a faculty member who shows dedicated service to the university, their profession and the community. The Distinguished Faculty Award is presented in the fall.

Jill Nilsen, vice president for external relations, will be speaking at today’s faculty senate meeting.

Nilsen said she, along with Director of Alumni Services Steve Rich and Executive Director of Philanthropy Karla Evans, will be presenting an update to the senate on what has been accomplished in external relations this year.

The presentation will cover alumni relations, university gifts and fundraising.

“Basically it’s about where we are to date and where we’re going,” Nilsen said.

Curry said external relations has been busy this year working on a major fundraising campaign for the university.

“With a new president, of course, there’s always new ideas.” Curry said. “The campaign is in the early stages right now so I think we’re all just curious to know what the plans are.”

Nilsen said the group will also be presenting information about legislation that is of interest to the university.

“Probably the most important is the funding,” Curry said. “It’s our chronic problem and it’s the thing everyone wants to know about.”

President Bill Perry testified before the Illinois General Assembly on March 6 on behalf of the university. He spoke about the lack of state appropriated funds.

According to the EIU Legislation Tracker, there are 334 pending bills of interest to the university.

Students, faculty and staff can view information about these bills by visiting the external relations’ Web site.

An update on the activities of University Communications and WEIU-TV and WEIU-FM will also be presented at the meeting.

After the presentation, Nilsen, Rich and Evans will respond to any questions presented by the senate.

The senate will conduct a brief business meeting before the presentations.

Eastern’s faculty senate meets at 2 p.m. in Booth Library Conference Room 4440.

Senate meetings are open to everyone.

Barbara Harrington can be reached at 581-7942 or at bjharrington@eiu.edu.