The Student Senate’s Tuition and Fee Review Committee, which recently decided how a $29.20 increase in student fees would be divided up around campus, never attempted to recruit faculty or staff representatives to its committee, violating the Student Senate Bylaws.

The Student Senate Bylaws require the committee to be composed of nine voting members including four student senators, three students, one Faculty Senate appointment and one Staff Senate appointment.

Student Body President Hugh O’Hara said he doesn’t believe the senate has ever enforced the bylaw requiring faculty and staff representation on the committee.

Faculty Senate member Gary Canivez, who is also Faculty Senate Nominations Committee chair, said he has not been approached about appointing a faculty member to the Tuition and Fee Review Committee.

“That is not a committee on my list that we regularly make appointments to,” said Canivez, a psychology professor. “If they contacted us then it wouldn’t be a problem.”

Canivez said when recommendations are made about tuition and fee increases, “faculty, students and administrators should be represented.”

Tuition and Fee Review Committee Chair Seth Quin did not return phone calls.

David Radavich, president of Eastern’s University Professionals of Illinois, the university’s faculty union, said it would be very important to have faculty representation on the committee.

“It is always nice to have different points of view from the campus on a committee making decisions like that,” said Radavich, an English professor. “It is the same argument that was made for student representation on the Board of Trustees.”

Radavich also pointed out that students are represented on the Faculty Senate as well.

“We try to facilitate communication and it would be wise to have faculty and staff on that committee,” he said.

Staff Senate Chair Sandy Bingham-Porter, data processing analyst, and senate corresponding secretary Linda Strange, in office system specialist, were not available for comment.

However, Radavich said it would also be equally important to have staff representation on the committee.

“They also deal with how to make this campus better for students,” he said.

This semester, the senate’s Tuition and Fee Review Committee voted on increases for the Student Recreation Center, Technology, Student Insurance and Textbook Rental Service, among others.

Radavich said faculty are greatly impacted by the funding of those boards.

“Faculty use the recreation center, and as a professor, I deal a lot with technology in the classroom,” he said.

Three students appointed to the committee were not in attendance at last weeks meeting.

Quin and senate members Corey Wilson, Lauren Kludge and Donna Fernandez, who is a senate liaison to the Faculty Senate, were the only voting members in attendance at last weeks meeting.