Eastern’s Faculty Senate pushed for on-campus day care during their meeting Tuesday.

The senate unanimously passed a motion asking President Bill Perry to create a committee to investigate the possibility of a child care facility at Eastern.

“The data is overwhelming.there is a need for child care,” senate chair John Pommier said.

Pommier and retired professor David Maurer both spoke about previous attempts to build a day care on campus in the mid-1980s and 2004.

“It is the sense of the Faculty Senate that previous committees have established the need for a child care facility at EIU,” said the motion, referring to those pushes for day care.

The senate agreed on the motion after hearing from representatives of the Eastern Student Parent Association, which represents students with children.

Joycelynn Phillips, E-SPA’s academic adviser, said on-campus day care is essential to Eastern’s job of educating student.

“Our goal is to retain and graduate students,” Phillips said. “It is beyond me how this can be done if Eastern doesn’t step up to the plate and provide quality child care.”

E-SPA member Shameka Ware said caring for children while attending college can be stressful.

“It’s hard,” Ware said. “I don’t go out and party. I get home, take care of my child, work.and I’m exhausted.”

Ware said finding day care can be hard and expensive.

She said when she first came to Eastern most affordable day cares were full.

“By the time I got down here (to Charleston), the rest of the day cares were full,” Ware said. “I still have November and December (to pay for) and my bill is $156.”

The Faculty Senate also discussed Booth Library opening hours with two members of Eastern’s Student Senate.

Student Senate member Chris Kromphardt said some students have told him the library is not open long enough.

“We have heard concerns that library hours don’t adequately meet the needs of students,” Kromphardt said.

He said Student Senate is preparing a survey on the subject.

“We are putting together a survey with three possible areas where (library hours) could be changed: mornings, Fridays and Saturdays, and possibly extending weekdays until 2 a.m.,” Kromphardt said.

Senate member Dawn Van Gunten said she was skeptical that many students would use the library if its hours were changed.

“You can differentiate between when students would actually go and when they say they would go,” Van Gunten said, adding that very few of her students say they do their coursework in the library.

New hours could also be a problem for the library staff, according to senate member and reference librarian Ann Brownson.

“We’re stretched right now where there’s no overlap between shifts,” Brownson said, adding that longer hours would require another shift of workers at the library.

Joe Astrouski can be reached at 581-7942 or at jmastrouski@eiu.edu.