Megan Fox was nominated to become speaker of the senate at the EIU student senate meeting on Wednesday.   

To become the speaker, a person must be nominated by a member of the senate, have served for one full academic semester and be an elected senator according to the EIU student senate bylaws.  

Fox, the sophomore political science and non-profit leadership major, is currently the parliamentarian of the senate and the chair of the academic affairs committee and was nominated by senator John Slater, a junior political science major.  

As parliamentarian, a role which works closely with the speaker of the senate, Fox said she has gained experience that will aid her new position.  

“I worked closely with speaker [Madison] Veatch to learn about the duties of the speaker of the senate and have become familiar with the procedures of the meeting and all the preparations that go into it,” Fox said.  

Fox said she is running on three pillars: outreach, accountability and organizational growth.  

“I believe that our organization can be more efficient in reaching out to our student body,” Fox said. “Given the fact that we have connections to so many different people and departments here at Eastern, we should be utilizing relationships and advocate for real change on campus.”  

Fox wants to use special committees to help to fix issues on campus, saying they would focus on areas that affect the student body.  

She said she also wants to prevent the student senator position from having a lot of turnovers.  

“When recruiting, I will emphasize what the commitment of SGA [student government association] is while also focusing on how this commitment is manageable,” Fox said. “By being fully transparent and prioritizing holding both ourselves and the university accountable, we will run smoother as an organization.”  

In addition, Fox wants to focus on letting people know about student government at EIU.  

“Many people know there is a student government, but they don’t know exactly what we do or what we stand for,” Fox said. “We should be anywhere the student body and administration may be to make our presence known and assert ourselves as an active organization.”  

Fox said she wants SGA to have a larger social media presence that includes more focus on the members and organization as a whole rather than just promoting posters of their events.  

The senate voted unanimously to approve a resolution in favor of supporting the Illinois Commission on Equitable Public Funding.  

The commission was created to help have equity in the funding of public universities in Illinois.  

“Simply put, it boils everything down to an adequacy of how much funding we get from the state and how much we should get from the state to adequately fund the university, and it has levels for each university of within the state,” author of the resolution Slater said.  

The funding formula is based off many aspects including Pell grants and grade point average, the resolution of which Fox supports.  

“I think education should be valued the same, especially by our government because we are all public institutions and I think that this is a good gesture from our organization,” Fox said.  

The senate voted unanimously to approve the recognition of the Ghanian student association.  

The goal of the GSA is to provide space and support for Ghanian students at EIU according to GSA representative and Associate Resident Director for University Court Isaiah Adegoke.  

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