Eastern News
Wednesday
“Tell th e t r u t h a n d d o n ’ t b e a fr a i d . ”
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SEPTEMBER 19, 2012 V O LU M E 2 2 | N o. 2 2
EASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY CHARLESTON, ILL. D A I LY E A S T E R N N E W S . C O M T WIT TER.COM/DEN_NE WS
Strindberg to be remembered
Freshman has early impact, makes history
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LATINO HERITAGE MONTH
FACULT Y SENATE
Chick-fil-A franchise debate continues Two Eastern students speak on controversy By Stephanie Markham Staff Reporter
Z ACHARY WHITE | THE DAILY EASTERN NE WS
Wei Wang, a graduate student, leads Cece Smith, a sophomore family and consumer sciences major, through a demonstration of an under arm turn during Tuesday’s salsa dancing lessons in the Student Recreation Center. The Ballroom dance Society will continue to have Latino dance lessons for the next three weeks.
Dance society salsas into Latino Heritage Month By Amy Wywialowski & Amanda Wilkinson Assistant Daily Editor & Staff Reporter
Hand-in-hand and eyes downward at their feet, about a dozen pairs of Eastern community members repeated the eight counts involved in Salsa dancing on Tuesday. Salsa, Rumba, Bachata and Cha Cha are just a few of the dances the EIU Ballroom Dance Society will teach in the next month in honor of Latino Heritage Month. The four-part series began Tuesday when the group taught participants how to do the Salsa. The dance pairs gathered in the Dance Studio of the Student Recreation Center to learn the dance that has been around since the early 1900s, the salsa.
Cece Smith, vice president for campus relations for the group and sophomore family and consumer sciences major, taught the dance after introducing its history and origin. “It says Salsa comes from Cuba, but it can also be found in the Dominican Republic,” Smith said. “It is a mixture of British, Frenchcountry style dance with African flair and Cuban music.” Smith said the name “Salsa” actually came from New York, although the dance does not originate there. This is first time the EIU Ballroom Dance Society has participated in Latino Heritage Month. “We cover a lot of Latino dances in here,” Smith said. “Dancing is a part of Latino culture, and we figured we might as well.” After going over the histor y,
Smith and Lisa Perfors, president of the society and junior music major, divided the group in half to learn the lead and follow roles. The lead role is traditionally taken by the male of the pair, but since more females attended the event, five of them learned the lead part. Kinyeta Porter, a senior psychology major and president of the Jolie Dance Troupe, chose to learn the lead role. “It is kind of weird but is fun,” she said. “This was a way to do something different.” Smith said along with learning the roles, they would also teach the basic steps, the side step, the underarm turn and the cross-body turn. Despite being a registered student organization, the club is not SALSA, page 5
CIT Y COUNCIL
Charleston council adds property By Samantha McDaniel Daily Editor
The Charleston City Council voted to add 49 acres within the city limits at its meeting on Tuesday. The council annexed the property adjacent to Sister City Park. The First Christian Church, 411 Jackson Ave., owns the property, and petitioned the city to annex the property. Mayor John Inyart said the property will potentially be developed by the church. “We hope, at some point, that the land will be developed,” Inyart said.
“We think that church someday will like to build a church on part of it, and this leaves their options open for what they do with the rest of it.” Inyart said along with annexation comes city services like water, sewer, police and fire protection. With the property, there are some streets that will become part of the city. “There are some county roads that go around this property, and so we will probably end up with the responsibility of maintaining part of those roads,” Inyart said. Inyart said there is an issue of
maintenance responsibility. “When we have an area with the city on one side and a township on the other, we will have to work something out to share the maintenance of the roads,” Inyart said. A no-parking zone was also added to the section of 13th Street across from Mark Twain Elementary School. This addition is to help improve the flow of traffic and visibility before, during and after school events. The ordinance was placed for public inspection at the Sept. 4 meeting. PROPERTY, page 5
The debate regarding Chick-filA’s contract with Eastern took place Tuesday between faculty, guests and administrators during Faculty Senate. The contract is renewed yearly on May 31. Nico Canady, a senior English major, came to the meeting to express his concerns. He said Chick-fil-A sends its money to organizations working toward limiting legal protections for those in gender or sexual minorities. “The bottom line is that Chickfil-A has the right to spend its money however it pleases, but we don’t have to let them do that on our campus and, in doing so, align our university’s values with theirs,” Canady said. Clinton Brown, a graduate student, showed the group that Chick-
fil-A Appreciation Day is shared on the EIU Facebook page. Br ow n s a i d p e o p l e c a m e t o Chick-fil-A on Aug. 1 in the Food Court of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union to support “a symbol of hatred” rather than simply food. “We cannot allow our campus to be hijacked by certain company’s extremist views,” Brown said. Amy Rosenstein, a Faculty Senate member from the special education department, motioned to place the last two sentences of Eastern’s mission statement detailing its commitment to diversity and inclusion in a visible place on all of the school’s social media websites. While Stacey Knight Davis, a Faculty Senate member from Booth Library, motioned to send a message to President Bill Perry requesting a formal statement addressing the issue and reinforcing the mission statement. However, the meeting was no longer in quorum, so both motions will be readdressed during the next meeting. CHICK-FIL-A, page 5
BUDGET
State reimbursement goal for university By Robyn Dexter In-depth Editor
Illinois owes $11.7 million to Eastern, but Eastern’s treasurer is hopeful that the amount will be paid back by the end of 2012. Treasurer Paul McCann said all the universities the state owes money to are paid in the same increments. “The state is paying down as they get money, and they’re keeping everybody at just about the same percentage of unpaid across the state,” he said. “It doesn’t make it any better or worse; it just puts everybody in the same place.” McCann said the state treasurer and the comptroller feel that Eastern will receive the money it is owed before the end of the fiscal year. “We are in about the same place we were a year ago,” he said. McCann said on top of the $11.7 million the state owes Eastern for Fiscal Year 2012, they also owe a little more than $8 million for FY 13 and about $4 million in Monetary Award Program grant money, bringing the total to around $24 million owed by the state. “It was a hard lesson when we first started having our reimbursements withheld,” he said. “ We quickly learned how to survive.” McCann said there are some monies that are set aside over the
years and put in equipment reserves for big projects. “There are also other unrestricted monies around the university that we can borrow,” he said. McCann said the way Eastern uses its income has also changed. “It used to be that we’d use all the Springfield money first, and we’d save tuition money until the end of the year,” he said. “Now we’re using the tuition money as soon as we get it in and using the appropriated money after that.” He said the cash flow does not change much, but the order in which the money is used does. “In general, we have not made any major cuts,” he said. “I go through every expenditure every day to give a fresh set of eyes to see if this is something we really need to be doing.” McCann said if he knows what he anticipates for spending, he will know what the university has in terms of cash flow. “Second guessing can come in handy,” he said. “People know that I look and think about whether or not we really need certain things.” McCann said campus does a great job of saving money by getting vendors down to the lowest price and by limiting travel. REIMBURSEMENT, page 5