Today’s Faculty Senate meeting will be brief because of an immediatly following faculty reception sponsored by University Professionals of Illinois, the union that represents faculty and staff at Eastern.

“This meeting has a light agenda. We will assign faculty to committees and go over committee reports,” said Bud Fischer, senate chair and biological sciences professor.

The reception, open to all faculty members, will immediately follow the senate meeting at 3 p.m. Two brief presentations will be given at this social event.

“UPI President Dave Radavich will give a short presentation on the faculty contract,” Fischer said.

For the second presentation, James Tidwell, senate member and journalism professor, will speak about shared governance and the involvement of faculty members in making important decisions for Eastern.

“I will talk about the origin of shared governance in the Faculty Senate Constitution, which ultimately creates the entire senate,” Tidwell said.

“We have a good senate system here at Eastern, much better than many schools around us,” Tidwell said. “I want to stress the importance and tradition of shared governance.

“We sometimes have troubles filling the committee positions, so basically, I’m going to aim at getting more faculty members involved,” Tidwell said.

The senate meeting will start at its usual time, 2 p.m., in Buzzard Hall Room 2504.