The Student Senate approved three emergency bills that added three new registered student organizations to Eastern Wednesday night.

Eastern’s newest RSOs are Elite Elegance, Creative Writing Club and Culturally Diverse Society, which was amended during the meeting to be named Multicultural Organization.

The constitution for the Multicultural Organization states its purpose is to be inclusive:

“The purpose(s) of the Culturally Diverse Society at Eastern Illinois University is to allow everyone at EIU to feel welcome regardless of their race. The goal is to be an inclusive club. People who are biracial and mixed-race do not feel they belong in the groups they are blended with. Biracial and mixed-race people often feel insecure and lost. This club would not only be for biracial and mixed-race people. But for anyone that wants to share their culture and learn about others.”

It was passed with 15 voting in favor of the approval, two voting against it and one abstention from the vote.

The organization’s president, junior English major Raina Rinker, shared a description of the organization a member had shared with her, saying the club was “a place of belonging and being accepting and being ourselves without having to choose part of ourselves.”

The Multicultural Organization sparked discussion amongst senators, leading to an extension in discussion time.

Some senators expressed they felt like the RSO needed more work before being approved.

Student Senator Faith Nuss said the group needed to work on organizing the group and its concept.

“At Eastern, I do want to promote diversity and things like that, but, if we’re going to have an RSO that’s allowing everyone on campus, so I don’t understand why we should have an RSO that’s like for multicultural if we want Eastern as a whole to be multicultural,” Nuss said.

Student Senator Joseph Gregory said he felt the RSO was on the right track and ready to be approved.

“I feel like that their whole goal is to build empathy and like hearing the stories of one another and I think that’s very important and I really feel like a time like today we don’t like to sit and listen to each other and just listen to learn,” Gregory said. “I think this club is a great idea and I see their vision. I feel like they have their vision, maybe just not completely down in words, but I think they’re ready to be an RSO and I think Eastern Illinois would really benefit from it.”

Student Vice President for Academic Affairs Prabin Karki said he felt like the Multicultural Organization could defeat the purpose of organizations like Latin American Student Organization, Black Student Union and the Association of International Students.

In the same meeting she was voted into the Senate, Student Senator Brianna Hull-Dennis said she did not agree with the points made by Karki.

“I think that each individual organization operates at the margins of these people’s identities and I think (the Multicultural Organization)  will allow them to have a place where they can collectively come together with one another, and exchange is different,” Hull-Dennis said. “I think a lot of the difference between this particular organization and the other ones will be that they are particularly associated with one identity type. There’s not a community in which these people are specifically interacting and sharing with one another and I think that itself will promote more diversity and understanding of one another and each other’s culture.”

Rinker said the group is currently just under ten members with others expressing interest in joining.

The Creative Writing Club’s constitution states it will “foster a wide student interest and participation in activities by providing leadership, programs, and service,” “to assist students in developing leadership skills,” “to bring together students of all cultures and diverse backgrounds to write about their favorite genre (i.e prose, poetry, non-fiction, fiction, sci-fi, etc),” and “to foster a positive community where aspiring writers of all genres can get appropriate feedback and further develop their writing capabilities.”

The bill for Creative Writing Club was passed with 12 senators voting yes, four voting no and two senators abstaining from the vote.

The constitution for Elite Elegance states that its purpose is to “unite young women and men through traditional (historically Black colleges and universities) artistic style majorette dancing.”

The bill for Elite Excellence was passed unanimously.

Corryn Brock can be reached at 581-2812 or at deneic@gmail.com.