The student senate began their meeting with a period of audience participation in which senate members considered appeals for support from two separate organizations.

Krishna Thomas, assistant director of the office of faculty development, promoted a series of free and informational sessions that her office will be sponsoring on April 8 in the Grand Ballroom of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union titled “More than the Sum of the Parts: Fostering Integrative Learning.”

Krishna said the objective of the sessions is to make connections across the curriculum and for students to apply what they learn in the classroom to real-life applications outside schoolwork and residential living.

“This is a holistic kind of student development,” Krishna said.

She hopes to gather student input from the sessions and expects to attract a substantial audience to the event, where Pat Hutchings, a professor from the University of Iowa, will speak about the significance of instating an integrative learning approach on campus.

Hutchings, the vice president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, has written widely on the investigation and documentation of teaching and learning and will host the catered event.

Paul Janowicz, director of expansion for the Chi Phi fraternity, informed the student senate about a new fraternity. Presently, Janowicz said the service-oriented fraternity, which advocates the ideals of truth, honor and integrity, has a chapter established at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Janowicz said he hopes to expand the fraternity to the Midwest, as well as utilize a potential program at Eastern as a model to other universities in the region.

“We want the support of the students, faculty and staff to make our impact on Eastern positive,” Janowicz said. “We felt this school has a great, open community already. It’s strong, and it’s only getting stronger.”

He told senate members that his goal is to have at least 30 men prepared for induction at the Chi Phi new member ceremony on March 7 out of almost 200 prospective members so far.

Following Janowicz’s appeal, the senate moved into a period of committee reports. Eric Wilber, executive vice president, said the Student Action Team is organizing a lobbying effort for the General Assembly in Springfield on April 21 in order to urge the timely dispersal of state-appropriated funds.

He also said that President Bill Perry plans to open up the Master Plan that was originally developed in the late 1990s. Numerous goals expressed in the outline, including the construction of the Doudna Fine Arts Center, the steam plant and the new textbook rental facility, have been accomplished.

Wilber will serve as the student representative on the steering committee that will re-evaluate the Master Plan, which is expected to be complete by September.

“This is to see what direction we want this campus to move forward with,” Wilber said.

The only new business examined by the senate was the matter of reconvening COBRA, the committee on bylaw revision adoption. The resolution passed unanimously.

Erica Whelan can be reached at 581-7942 or elwhelan@eiu.edu