Three members of Eastern’s student senate will leave Saturday to attend The Conference on Student Government Associations, also known as COSGA, in College Station, Texas.

Eastern’s delegates were chosen through an application and interview process directly by last year’s student senate speaker and previous attendees.

The final selection resulted in senate members Jason Sandidge, Jennifer Prillaman and Tommy Nierman chosen to represent Eastern.

In past years, five delegates have regularly been sent to represent Eastern, but because of recent budget cuts, only three can be sent this year.

The delegates plan to share a few of Eastern’s student government ideas that have proved to be successful in the past and make the university’s program stand out from others.

“As far as Eastern goes, in a time of financial crisis we have managed to save students money with programs such as textbook rental,” Nierman said. “We have also maintained environmental responsibility with plans for the new power plant and turning Eastern toward a greener campus.”

At the conference, delegates from all over the country will meet at roundtable discussions to learn things from other universities’ student government programs and hopefully bring them back to their respective campuses.

“I’d like to bring back new ideas to improve current students and open new ideas to prospective students to make Eastern more appealing,” Sandidge said.

He also mentioned listening to how other universities deal with general issues and their problem-solving techniques.

Prillaman said she does not know what to expect from the conference other than the constant discussions and long days.

“I am expecting (the conference) to be tiring, but there will be so much high energy,” she said. “I’m so excited.”

Prillaman has been a member of the senate for three semesters and hopes to come back from the conference rejuvenated with new energy for student government.

Eastern’s delegates all show excitement in the upcoming conference and hope to bring back ideas from other schools to improve Eastern’s university and the surrounding community.

“We all want to take as much information back from COSGA as we can,” Sandidge said.

Jenna Mitchell can be reached at 581-7942 or jlmitchell@eiu.edu