The EIU student senate heard a presentation from the Coles County Regional Planning and Development Commission and discussed student fees on Wednesday in the South Quad Commons.
The meeting saw a presentation from Samantha McCullough, a representative from the commission, to give a general overview of the transportation survey given out between October and December of 2023.
“Your perspectives are important,” McCullough said. “You represent the student body, and I want to make sure that we’re approaching this thoughtfully.”
Date collected from the survey included income, employment, cost of living and makeup of the community as well as general feedback from the community.
Findings from the survey showed that the public did not know about Dial-a-ride, the system run by Coles County that allows people to be picked up by a bus.
“We found a lot of people didn’t even know that Dial-a-Ride was available to them,” McCullough said. “They didn’t realize it was a public service.”
McCullough said they need to make a plan to spread the word of Dial-a-Ride.
“There needs to be a marketing plan in place,” McCullough said.
Potential plans include expanding transit to the wider community and integrating it into EIU’s transit system.
The senate was in favor of expansion of transit in the county.
“I think this is much needed especially from transporting from Charleston to Mattoon,” student senator Sam Erwin said. “I also take classes at Lake Land [College] while taking classes at EIU. Having access to get to Lake Land would be awesome.”
“I take the Amtrak up to Chicago a whole lot so having [Dial-a-Ride] as an option to get to the train station or just go to Mattoon is really helpful,” Fox said.
Vice President of Business Affairs Matt Bierman presented to the senate on student fees.
Bierman said he had discussions with University President Jay Gatrell and the Vice President of Student Affairs Anne Flaherty regarding how the fee process could be changed.
The student fee task force created this fall looked at many factors to see what can be changed to be more transparent and simpler.
“We looked at how fees are organized,” Bierman said. “What do we need to rename, what do we need to combine and things we need to do to simplify?”
EIU’s current fee structure works in three ways.
Some fees are decided by credit hours up to a maximum of 12 hours, Bierman said. There are also fees charged by credit hours with no limit and fees that are a fixed rate.
These fees have led to confusion among students and parents, Bierman said.
One discussed solution included grouping all fees into one on the student bill. There would be a link attached, Bierman said, to learn more about where all the fees go to.
Another solution would be to update and breakup fees to help students better understand the breakdown.
For example, Bierman said, in the health services and pharmacy fee, the EIU pharmacy is no longer used, so the name would be changed to the health services and counseling fee, more clearly indicating where the money is going to.
Fees could also be based by either credit hour exactly or be banded approach where the fees would be in tiers.
“If you were to provide a link on the bill, I feel that would be a little more helpful,” student body president Taylor Cloud said.
Student senator Claire Webber found having fees available to see very helpful.
“Seeing these as a freshman it does help me understand more,” Webber said.
Vice president of student affairs Mason Tegeler was in favor of breaking down fees as well.
“I am in favor of as much transparence in a bill from the moment it gets into your hands,” Tegeler said. “You may have a four- to five-page document, but I want to know everything.”
The meeting also saw nominations for speaker of the senate. Any senator can nominate any elected senator to become speaker.
Current speaker Madison Veatch nominated parliamentarian Megan Fox for speaker, which she declined.
Fox nominated Veatch, who accepted.
Jason Coulombe can be reached at 581-2812 or at jmcoulombe@eiu.edu.
