Eric Wilber, a graduate student and former executive vice president of student affairs for the student government, came to the student government meeting to present the Eastern Illinois University Master Plan Presentation with Dan Rolando, current executive vice president for student affairs.

“It takes a lot of planning and a lot of different steps to build a building,” said Wilber. “This (presentation) is basically trying to start that process, seeing what our current usage of facilities are around campus, and seeing what we need in the future.”

Student government members discussed their reactions to the master plan presentation.

“I thought (the presentation) was very interesting, I heard rumors about the stuff that they were planning on doing but to see the pictures and the spaces where things were actually going definitely put it into perspective,” said Kaci Abolt, a student senate member.

Roberto Luna, a student senate member, agreed.

“I liked it a lot, they showed it up front for what it really is,” said Luna. “You could see all the maps and everything that they were passing around with the outlook and how it’s going to be divided up money-wise.”

The master plan presentation is a layout for constructional changes to the campus that are planned over the next few years.

“I thought it was neat to see, I wish I could stay around to see it all happen and it makes me want to come back to campus and see it all done,” said Mary Lane, a student senate member.

Wilber said the Master Plan is a long-term plan and is open to changes.

“This is not a be-all end-all, it is not set in stone. Things can happen outside of the master plan process,” said Wilber.

Many different diagrams of the planned changes were shown during the presentation.

“I liked how they had the different layouts and all the different angles to see the buildings,” said Lane. “I feel they put a lot of thought into it and they really laid out and looked for what was reasonable and what wasn’t reasonable to try and get done.”

Kris Caldwell, the student government web designer, was not available to attend the student government meeting so Student Body President Michelle Murphy gave the presentation for the new student government website.

“The website is not online yet and not all of the pages are finished, you are going to see the homepage and I’ll show you a couple of the side pages,” Murphy said. Murphy presented the basic layout of the website and what further changes are planned.

“It’s different in a very good way,” said Luna. “I want to see, when it comes down to it, the final one and how that’s going to look, it still had some aspects to it that needed to get adjusted. When it’s up and running, I think it will be a very good thing.”

Lane also discussed the website.

“I think it’s new and refreshed and I hope that students will really want to get into it,” said Lane. “We need to really get it out to the students that there is a new website.”

During the meeting, Abolt mentioned the Registered Student Organization, Pride, idea of the Safe Zone and incorporating a Safe Zone sticker to the Student Activities Center where the student government operates outside of its meetings.

“The stickers are something where students will be able to recognize teachers, students, faculty, and basically anyone on campus that can talk to students in an accepting environment where they can talk about issues and express concerns that they might have,” said Abolt.

Matt Boyd, a student senate member and chair of the University Development and Recycling committee discussed having another Dumpster Dive on November 7th at 2 p.m. at the Taylor Hall dumpster.

The student government meets every Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Arcola-Tuscola Room in the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.

Rachel Rodgers can be reached at 581-7942 or < a href="mailto:rjrodgers@eiu.edu">rjrodgers@eiu.edu.