Sarah Shaw, internal relations chair on Student Senate, voted yes for the increased service hours proposal that failed at Student Senate’s Oct. 30 meeting.

She voted yes because she thinks it should not be that big of a deal to inform students outside of the office about student government.

“This should be something that students do regularly,” Shaw said.

Shaw was one of the co-signers on the four-service hours proposal.

“I was asked to sign onto it because I am the internal affairs chair and office hours falls under my jurisdiction,” Shaw said.

Student Senate member Keith Darby was also for the increase of two service hours to four hours.

“I think the biggest problem (for all senate members) was the time availability,” Darby said. “Getting outside with the extra two service hours would help inform students more about Student Government and be a big stepping stone.”

Darby said some of Eastern’s students do not even know where or what Student Senate is.

Senate member Michelle Adeniyi voted in favor of the proposal because she felt since it would not go into effect next year, she would have more time to get the service hours completed.

“People said they would not have time, but they don’t know what they will be doing next year,” Adeniyi said.

Drew Griffin, external relations chair, voted no. “The reason I voted no is because I disagreed with how the legislation was written,” Griffin said. “The legislators did not require for the senators to be out of the office, so it didn’t make sense to increase service hours and not require senators to be outside the office.”

Griffin, however, is not opposed to having hours outside the office increased.

Student Senate member Jose Alarcon also voted no for the proposal. “The main reason why I voted no is because I am already doing so many activities already and representing Student Government,” Alarcon said. “To me, it was useless to need some kind of documentation to prove that I am doing this, and it doesn’t make any sense to have it required.”

Alarcon also had a problem with the increase of two to four office hours proposal that was brought forth and failed before the four service hours proposal was created.

“I already work 30 something hours a week and do community service,” he said.

He said he should be able to do activities outside the office on his own time.

“On Monday, we did a fire extinguisher safety walk and it was on my own time,” Alarcon said. “Don’t force me to do anything. I don’t mind serving the students, but I didn’t like the way the service hours proposal was worded.”

Chris Kromphardt, academic affairs chair, was against the increased office hours and increased service hours proposals.

“I felt double the requirement for office hours was a big change,” he said. “Three hours I might have considered.”

For the service hours proposal, he said it was not required for Student Senate members to get out of the office for the extra two service hours.

“I didn’t think it would accomplish what it wanted to,” Kromphardt said. “If it would not accomplish what it set out to do, I was not going to vote for it.”

Kromphardt said there was also a lot of discussion on accountability – both proposals were based mainly on the honors system.

“There was no way to prove the students were actually doing work,” he said.

Student Body President Levi Bulgar was surprised that after all the changes the authors made, the service hours proposal failed.

“Service hours could include anything from riding the shuttle bus and talking to students, going to residence hall meetings or talking to RSOs,” Bulgar said. “If someone were to bring something like this up again, I would hope they would try to address all the issues that Student Senate members have and solve these issues.”

Since the four service hours proposal failed, Student Senate members are now required to do time cards that show all members actually did two hours in the office.

“It used to be that members filled out their times in the office on a piece of paper,” Darby said. “They could be writing down hours when they would not be doing the necessary work, though. Also, if we do not turn in our time card now, we get an absence.”

Adeniyi said the time cards are effective in that it shows what time a Student Senate member comes in and leaves.

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