Student Senate approved Blue Room magazine as a registered student organization and talked about upcoming events at their meeting Wednesday.

Blue Room magazine was created two years ago.

Brooke Szweda, co-editor-in-chief of the Blue Room, said the magazine gives students at Eastern a way to exhibit their work, as well as the chance to potentially be interviewed for the magazine.

“It also gives art students the chance to gain experience working at a magazine, which is especially good for graphic design students,” Szweda said.  “It’s great experience for the real world, which they don’t often get in their classes.”

Maralea Negron, speaker of the senate, talked about recruitment week.

Negron told the senators not to forget to tell classmates or friends who were not running that the ballots would be emailed to them.

“Make sure you’re encouraging the student body to vote in general and get involved in elections,” Negron said.

In her report, Student Body President Shirmeen Ahmad talked about a phone call she received from the president of the University of Illinois about a letter-writing campaign to the state government because of the budget impasse.

Different schools are making it so students are writing letters about how the budget impasse affects them to their state senators.

“(So) they know that this is awful, and they have to do something,” Ahmad said.

Ahmad said the senators keep track of how many letters they receive about a certain issue.

“It lets them know how serious of an issue it is,” Ahmad said. “So obviously we should take part in this. It would be awful if all the other schools are doing great things and we’re just sitting here.”

Ahmad said they would hopefully come up with a plan to get students to write letters.

Student body Executive Vice President Catie Witt said she received an email from a Board of Trustees member talking about the letter.

“They said in your letter, talk about why you chose Eastern, why you love Eastern, and how this is impacting you as an EIU student,” Witt said. “Sometimes they don’t always remember we’re over here in Charleston at EIU. Make it personal.”

Witt thanked the senators for their help at the voter registration drive last week.

She said they had over 200 people registered.

“That’s 200 people more than before,” Witt said.

Chelsey Milligan, chair of the business affairs committee, said they were planning on event to answer students questions about the budget  on 6 p.m. November 16th in Lumpkin Hall Auditorium.

She asked for senators to be in a video about the MAP grant and other budget impasse issues.

Negron stressed the importance of making the video.

“It’s important that his video is successful and we inform the student body what’s going on with the budget,” Negron said. “Not only is the MAP grant a problem, the budget impasse is a problem as a whole.”

Ariannah Lambert, chair of the University Enhancement Committee, said she is having a follow up to the Safety-Walk 6 p.m. Monday starting at Old Main.

She said her committee is also going to ride the panther shuttle bus for an hour to ask people what they think about it.

“Is there anything we can do better, any way we can promote it better,” Lambert said.

Cassie Buchman can be reached at 581-2812 or cjbuchman@eiu.edu