A proposal will be presented tonight for the Illinois Board of Higher Education-Student Advisory Committee to use $768.79 of the budget on hotel accommodations, refunds for travel expenses and per diem reimbursements such as meals to go to this month’s conference.

The IBHE-SAC conference is this weekend at Harold Washington College in Chicago.

“Every year we send up delegates to IBHE-SAC,” said Student Senate Speaker Isaac Sandidge. “We budget every year for this.”

This conference was scheduled for Western Illinois University in Macomb but it was changed at the last minute.

This proposal has to be voted on at tonight’s meeting.

Usually proposals are tabled for one week, but since the change in venue was so sudden and rooms were already reserved in Macomb, the proposal has to be voted on tonight.

“The only problem I see is senators having a problem with the amount of money, but the money is not new funds – it was already put aside for this particular conference,” Sandidge said.

Eric Wilber, student executive vice president, is going to the conference along with two other students.

“We are the official Eastern voice on this committee,” Sandidge said. “When you go to the conference, you end up splitting up into different subcommittees and discuss things such as transfer initiatives.”

It is basically a chance for Eastern students to bring forth their input to the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

Sandidge said the board always has questions about textbook rental because Eastern and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville are the only schools with such a program.

“Students can add more Eastern insights to other schools,” Sandidge said.

In other business, Mike Whilden will replace Stephanie Cascio as an on-campus senate member and Wilber is going to be reappointed as the student representative to the Charleston City Council.

“(Student Sena–te) decided that we wanted to have him on the board again,” Sandidge said.

Jackie Alexander, student vice president for academic affairs, is also going to speak about the new technology committees in her executive report.

Wilber will talk about the “Reason to Vote” campaign after “Rock the Vote” is over.

He is going to give out candy with reasons to vote on them and so far Student Government has 256 reasons.

Wilber will launch this after the voter registration deadline.

Diversity requirement guidelines will be presented to the members and the Student Senate needs a new chair for the External Relations Committee since the chair Paul Reid resigned. Reid will maintain his position on the Student Senate.

Heather Holm can be reached at 581-7942 or at haholm@eiu.edu.