Trustees will hear plea at April board meeting

Daniel Toberman
Assistant News Editor

The SIU board of trustees will not have the chance to hear student concerns about the proposed athletic fee increase until next month.

At the most recent meeting March 8, Student Trustee Jason Holzum decided not to address the $8.60 increase that has been endorsed by the student senate.

Holzum had said he was going to present the petition signed by more than 450 students seeking a referendum.

At their Feb. 23 meeting, student senators ignored the petition, saying they had already given the fee hike unanimous support.

Holzum, however, said he would present the matter to the board of trustees at its March meeting.

"I haven't forgotten about it," Holzum said after that meeting. "I am just going to wait until the April meeting because we wouldn't decide on it until May anyway."

More than $650,000 was approved to construct a new School of Nursing. Last year, the school took over responsibility for the University of Illinois nursing program. Because of that agreement, the program will be relocated to Springfield next to the School of Medicine.

SIUE planners said placing the program in this location would allow shared classroom space and mutual support from both the medicine and nursing programs. The construction contracts were given to three companies: Vancil Contracting Inc., Henson Robinson Co. and Anderson Electric.

Gov. George Ryan's 2001 budget was also announced at the meeting.

"It was probably the best year that we have ever had related to the budget," SIU President James Walker said. "The governor kept his word when he said that he was going to give more money to education, giving $134 million to the Illinois Board of Higher Education. We received 99 percent of what we wanted. The only thing that we didn't get was money for renovations of the (SIUE) Science Building."

The budget must get approval at the legislative session before the amount is finalized.

Among other items on the agenda were presentations on the progress of the East St. Louis Center renovations, the high-tech boot camp and the new administrative systems.