CUPB members focused on lobbying efforts, initiatives to increase enrollment and methods to increase revenue during their meeting Friday afternoon.

Eastern David Glassman shared his experience lobbying in Springfield last week and how the Senate has passed a bill to the House of Representatives that could secure full funding for Eastern.

“The nice thing about if we could get our fiscal 15 money again at that level then we would have funds to bring back several crucial individual positions,” Glassman said.

President David Glassman said he believes the Senate is more focused on passing a comphrensive budget instead of another stopgap budget.

The House of Representatives has also passed another bill to the Senate that only guarantees partial funding.

“ I don’t think they (the Senate) will give it much attention at this time. They’re looking for something bigger to end this bypass and get this state moving forward,” Glassman said.

If the House of Representatives approves the Senate bill and the governor signs off on it then Eastern could potentially receive 10 million dollars from the state Glassman said.

“It was interesting to see senators walking around optimistic saying, ‘we are actually doing something we are tweaking some things so we can get things done’ I just have not seen that in the past and quite frankly it was bazaar to see,” Glassman said.

Paul McCann, interim vice president of business affairs, said that after examining the November budget for fiscal year 2017 determined that it is balanced but, having full funding from the state would help tremendously.

“When its all said and done our revenue will be in the total of 83 million, our expenses will be somewhere in the range of 83 million and we will have a balanced budget which is something for the last couple of years we have not achieved,” McCann said.

The budget that is being analyzed only shows the money that is funded by the state and from tuition and fees.

Josh Norman, associate vice president for enrollment management has teamed up Provost Blair Lord to implement five strategies to increase enrollment and increase the university’s revenue.

These strategies include getting information from ACT on prospective students, writing personalized letters, organizing college calling campaigns, and encouraging both alumni and employees to tell family members to apply at Eastern.

“For students who have yet applied we are creating these college specific events to engage them into the enrollment funnel,”Norman said.

Norman said that he will use the preferences that students provide on their ACT like their score, if they want a public university, interested in one of the majors the university offers or if they want a medium sized campus and will send mail that says,’We choose you.’

The admissions office has access to alumns records that can help identify potential students.

“There are 1400 alumns that have college bound family members that meets the college criteria we want and what we are doing with these students is offering a 50% off coupon at the bookstore if they apply and come to campus,”Norman said.

This investment will help increase the amount of qualified students that apply Norman said.

“We know these students have a higher retention rate we know that is a good investment because these are  good quality students who stay here and succeed,” Norman said.

Glassman said the recommendations with enrollment management; marketing, facilities and intercollegiate athletics will begin making arrangements to implement some of the recommendations.

Glassman is in the process of hiring an external marketing agency that will work to promote Eastern’s academics, services, and campus experience.

“We are bringing marketing here in order to do something the university has never done, we are repairing buildings that have been unfortunately neglected and we are putting our money there because we know that is important,”Glassman said.

Kalyn Hayslett can be reached at 581-2812 or kehayslett@eiu.edu.