The student senate has hosted their sixth unofficial meeting of the semester, which means the entire semester’s worth of meetings has been unofficial due to the senate being unable to recruit senators and some senators needing to miss meetings.  

Despite the continuous unofficial meetings, the student government continues to recruit senators and has 13of the 15 senators needed to make quorum. Senator Jayson Strand, a freshman political science major, was sworn in at the meeting meaning that two more senators are needed to make senate meetings official.   

Since all the meetings have been unofficial, the student government has not been able to approve everything on the consent agenda, which has been on the agenda for almost an entire month. Due to this meeting continuing to not meet quorum, the executive order is still in place, which is where President Lucy Ade can approve or deny senate bills and budgets after they get a period of questions and get approved from the council of chairs to be moved from the council meeting to the senate meeting. 

During her presentation, Vice President of Academic Affairs Nidhi Patel told the senate that Dining with the Deans took place on Feb. 28. Topics at the dinner included restaurant variety and having to pay for outside technology to do homework for classes, such as Cengage.  

Safety week takes place next week. There will be a wide variety of activities planned and resources given out to students. The University Enhancement committee detailed the budget for the entire week of events, which totals about $1,486.29.  

The activities will include a ‘Darty’ which will include a live DJ and a root beer keg stand, Bingo and Prizes with the Health Education Resource Center (HERC); the prizes include a hammock, a variety of board games and a toaster. There will be hot chocolate and danishes at a separate event. Sexual Assault Counseling and Information Service (SACIS) and the University Enhancement committee will be partnering to provide water bottles with water bottles with a variety of interpersonal violence resources available to students.   

There will be a variety of date rape kits available at places across campus.  

Executive Vice President Connor Mellott is looking for both students and senators to join the Student Action Team (SAT). The student action team is a team of students from across the state that travel to Springfield, Ill. to help create legislation for college students both across the state and at Eastern.  

Mellott is looking for at least 10 other Eastern students to be on the action team. The team gets to visit Springfield for a day and help advocate for the needs of the students.  

Mellott mentioned that it is important for students to be on this because it is a great way to get involved and be passionate about something. His goal is to get both students and lawmakers excited about helping Eastern.  

For those interested in joining the student senate, there will be a table with information on March 6 from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. in the lobby of the food court. Speaker of the Senate, Karolina Guzek, will be there to answer any questions and help with applications.  

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