The Student Senate dressed up for Halloween for what would have been their weekly meeting, if they met quorum on Wednesday night.

Many senators dressed up in costumes to celebrate Halloween, which happens on Monday. Senators were able to snack on candy and pizza throughout the meeting.

However, there were not enough senators to meet quorum, so the meeting was unofficial.

Since the meeting was unofficial, Samaria Rosenthal, a psychology major, could not be appointed to the student senate.

Connor Mellott, a sophomore communications major, is the senate’s executive vice president. During the meeting he was encouraging senators to help at voter registration events. These events are in conjunction with the Civic Engagement and Volunteerism Office.

Students that are not from Coles County can fill out an absentee ballot or register to vote within Coles County.

Nidhi Patel, the vice president for academic affairs, reminded senators what the grade appeal was, and that it is a resource available to students should they feel the need to use it.

“So it’s basically an opportunity for students to dispute if they think the grade that they got in a class was unfair,” Patel said. “And a lot of students are not aware that they can do this… They have to obviously present to I’m not sure exactly who, but I will get more information on that. They had to fill out an application and argue their case where they didn’t deserve that great and sometimes it goes through, sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s a shot for students who think that they were unfairly graded.”

Mahlet Mulugeta, a sophomore computer science major, is also a student senator on the academic affairs committee. During the meeting, Mulugeta talked about a program that the academic affairs committee is hosting.

During this program, students will be able to write their major, what they think their major says about them and how they express themselves through school work.

“It’s a collage, and people write their names and what their academics says about them and expressing themselves through their schoolwork and academics,” Mulugeta said. “Also, they pin it to the wall to the collage.”

The program will take place Nov. 7 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union Bridge Lounge.

Speaker of the Senate Jasmine Yusef’s term as speaker ends at the last meeting of the semester. The senate will be holding elections Dec. 7 during their meeting at 7 p.m. in the Arcola/Tuscola Room of the MLK Jr. Union.

The senate will have nominations for speaker at the Nov. 30 meeting. Only senators that have been nominated have the ability to be speaker of the senate.

The new speaker begins their term as soon as they are nominated.

Katja Benz can be reached at 581-2812 or at kkbenz@eiu.edu.