The EIU student senate held its weekly meeting on Wednesday that saw the approval of a new club and the appointment of student government’s executive vice president to the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

Emergency bill 24-25 03, a bill approving a new EIU D&D club, was approved with the whole senate in favor.

The bill is to recognize the EIU D&D club as a registered student organization. 

The EIU D&D club is an organization based around the tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons. Club president Nate Turner presented to the senate his case for the club’s approval.  

“The intention of D&D club is to build connections between students who share these interests’ tabletop RPGs, build confidence and encourage creativity among our members,” Turner said.  

The club is an outlet for new and old players alike. 

“We will be providing learning material such as instruction videos on YouTube and free no copyrighted pdfs on how to play the game and videos from popular DMs,” Turner said.   

Turner said the club intends to organize the club meetings into those who are new to Dungeons and Dragons and those who are more experienced.

After the presentation, the topic was brought to discussion by the senate. 

“I think this is a wonderful idea,” speaker of the senate Madison Veatch said. 

Many other agreed, and a roll call vote was called. The bill was passed with 13 in favor, zero opposed and zero abstained.  

The meeting saw the vote of the appointment of executive vice president Ameenah Morris to the Illinois Board of Higher Education, which oversees higher education in the in the state. The motion to appoint was passed with 12 in favor, none opposed, and none abstained.  

The appointments of Claire Weber, Anna Jones and Sam Erwin to the student senate were also approved.  

Amy Odwarka, the first-year experience/student success librarian at Booth Library, stopped by the meeting to inform the senate on the newly opened family hub at Booth Library.  

“The Family Hub is made up of four distinct spaces in the library,” Odwarka told the senate. 

“The Family Hub is made up of two lactation and infant feeding rooms, and there are two family study spaces,” she said.  

The Family Hub was created to provide support for parents and caretakers of children to help their academics. 

“The university in their last reporting came in at about 7.8% of the student body [being parents],” Odwarka said. 

Odwarka asked student government to spread information about the Family Hub. 

“Our ask, for all of you, is to get the word out,” she said. “There is no point in having these spaces all around campus if people don’t know about them.”

Additionally, reports were given by the academic affairs committee on meetings from the past week, the alumni relation committee on future plans with Charleston Mayor Brandon Combs and other alumni. 

The external relations committee reported on brainstorming ideas, meeting with members of the Charleston City Council and exploring ideas to get the car rental company Zipcar at EIU. 

Jason Coulombe can be reached at 581-2812 or at jmcoulombe@eiu.edu.