FOOTBALL NOTEBOOK
The Panthers attempted improve their offense against the Redbirds Saturday but lost 34-31.
ZOMBIE RUN
The Phi Kappa Theta Fraternity will volunteer in the Zombie Run at the Coles County Fair Grounds Saturday.
PAGE 3
PAGE 8
THE
D aily E astern N ews
Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2015 “TELL THE TRUTH AND DON’T BE AFRAID” C E L E BRATI NG A CE NTUR Y OF COV E RA GE 19 15- 201 5
VOL. 100 | NO. 22 W W W . D A I L Y E A S TE R N N E W S . C O M
Police say robberies may be related By Roberto Hodge News Editor | @DEN_News Eastern’s emergency notification system alerted students about four robbery incidents over a span of seven days. Adam Due, the chief of police for the University Police Department, said police believe some of the incidents are related. The first incident occurred Sept. 13. early morning on the south side of Booth Library,
with reports of not only a robbing, but also battery. Others include: • Sept. 17 at 4:30 p.m. between Lumpkin and Klehm Halls. • Sept. 18 at 3:30 a.m. between Fourth and Polk • Sept. 20 late afternoon on Fourth Street by the basketball courts. Due said many of the victims of the crimes have been males in their late teens to early 20s. He said none of the incidents involved a weapon
and no arrests have been made, but possible suspects have been detained with the incident still under investigation. “We are working with Charleston PD although the on-campus and off-campus cases aren’t necessarily related,” Due said. For each of the incidents, Eastern’s email alert notified students and included a list of safety tips, which Due said could be used during any time of the day. Included in the list were tips such as keeping
doors locked when napping or going to bed for the night and avoiding walking alone at night. The Charleston and University police departments did not release identifiable information regarding the suspects or confirm specifics about the four incidents upon phone calls from The Daily Eastern News. Roberto Hodge can be reached at 581-2812 or rlhodge@eiu.edu
JASON HOWELL | THE DAILY EASTERN NE WS
Taylor Hall currently is only using eight of its 10 total floors because of low enrollment. Since there are no students on those floors, the university is planning on renovating them.
Empty floors affect residence hall living By Cassie Buchman Administration Editor| @cjbuchman Two floors from Taylor Hall and one in Lawson are without residents because of renovations and a declining student population. Mark Hudson, the director of Housing and Dining, said there are plans for renovations on the floors not being used right now. Hudson said the fifth floor in the north tower of Taylor Hall is closed for bathroom renovations and fifth floor on the south tower is closed because of low enrollment. A floor in Lawson Hall was also closed last
year because of renovations. Hudson said he wants to make sure every floor has critical mass, meaning some floors are put offline for renovation. “It’s the enrollment reality. When our enrollment’s down, we don’t need as much space,” Hudson said. “It makes more sense to not have an RA, it’s a way in which you can consolidate your residents onto the floors so they fit fine without using those floors.” Hudson said Housing made the floor on Taylor with the elevator the one with no residents because it is the one that is the furthest climb for students get there.
“We don’t need all (the floors) for occupancy so that allows us to do some renovations on them,” Hudson said. “So, when the enrollment continues to grow then we’ll have those floors ready to go.” Taylor has ten floors in total, but only eight are inhabited. Even with two floors closed, Taylor still has the highest resident population in it, Hudson said. Taylor can hold 520 residents at maximum capacity. The residence hall with the lowest resident population is Pemberton, but it is also the hall
with the highest retention rate. Pemberton can hold 152 residents at maximum capacity. Along with a lack of floors being inhabited, dining has also been affected because of the declined enrollment. “We’re serving less meals, so obviously we’re saving some food costs,” Hudson said. “But we serve the same number of hours as last year so the cost for operation is very similar.” Housing and Dining does not use money from the state or from tuition and fees so the only money they have is the money from people who pay to live on campus. RESIDENCE HALLS, page 6
Tuition rate decline helps international students By Alex Seidler Staff Reporter| @DEN_News International undergraduate students now pay less tuition to attend the university beginning in the 2015 fall semester. International students pay $356 per-semester hour instead of the original $849, according to the proposed fiscal year 2016 fee recommendations. Kevin Vicker, the director of the office of international students and scholars, said the decision to lower international student tuition was meant to generate more revenue and to be a “win-win” for Eastern. Vicker said 48 new undergraduate international students are at Eastern this year, which is more than last year. “It’s great for the university to host many international students because it diversifies our campus and brings a lot more people together,” Vicker said. Paul McCann, the interim vice president for
business affairs, said the average international tuition rate at one point was three times that of instate tuition. “One of our issues was we had few foreign students and at that point a number of the foreign students were paying three times the instate rate,” McCann said. “It was stopping a lot of the foreign students from coming to campus. McCann conducted a study, which he presented to the Board of Trustees to show what the best course of action should be. “We looked at how many foreign students were being affected by that higher rate,” McCann said. “Through this we saw a significant market out there that we couldn’t tap because the rate was too high for those students,” McCann said. McCann said he found that Eastern could get more international student enrollment out of lowering the tuition, which therefore could generate more revenue for the school. “We found that it would be more beneficial to decrease the rate so that we would have more
students coming in,” McCann said. Prabeg Ghimire, a graduate student of technology, said he thinks making the tuition cost lower will attract more international students. Ghimire said it is hard for some international students economically and the new cost will help them. “Not all students come from rich families; thus in order to attract students from average economical families from Asian countries or any other countries, I think this was a good move taken by Eastern,” Ghimire said. Meung-a Lee, a junior pre-nursing major, said when her scholarship from Eastern ended and she decided to stay she was worried that the tuition would be a problem. “Almost all of my Korean friends who came here with me last semester went back to Korea,” Lee said. “Even though they could extend one more semester, because the tuition is expensive for them.” Lee said she received a scholarship from her
university in South Korea and Eastern and she decided to stay after initially coming to Eastern for just a semester. Lee said when the tuition went down it made her think of staying at Eastern longer than planned. Yanzhang Yang, a sophomore engineering major, said the new tuition rate surprised him when he heard about it. Yang said he think this is a very helpful action especially for those students who do not have very rich family and backgrounds. “I am not from a really rich family so that is not easy for my family to support my tuition fee,” Yang said. “That change let me even to want to introduce our school to my friends in our country so that they can come to our school with a low tuition fee.” Alex Seidler can be reached at 581-2812 or ajseidler@eiu.edu .