Eastern took its first steps toward federal funding last week when Jill Nilsen, vice president for external affairs, and interim President Lou Hencken met with both Illinois senators and several other congressmen.

Nilsen said Eastern had planned on trying to get money from the federal government before the state cut $2.3 million in its funds, but that issue made the need more urgent.

“There has always been a plan to be more active federally; that problem was the impetus to move at this point,” Nilsen said, but it is now too late to secure funds for this or even next fiscal year.

Nilsen and Hencken spoke with four Illinois legislators: Sen. Dick Durbin, (D-Chicago), Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, (R-Iverness), Rep. David Phelps, (D-Eldorado) and Rep. Timothy Johnson, (R-Sidney). Johnson’s district currently includes the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Illinois State University, and redistricting may add Eastern to that group, Nilsen said.

They also met with Michigan’s Rep. Joe Knollenberg, (R-Bloomfield Hills), who is an Eastern alumnus and 2000 winner of the Distinguished Alumni Award.

All the legislators pledged their support for Eastern, Nilsen said.

“Each of the legislators expressed their willingness to help us at the federal level,” Nilsen said.

Doing that means identifying the bills moving through Congress with the potential to help Eastern financially, like those pertaining to teacher education, Nilsen said. She noted the ability of the College of Sciences to secure federal grants. She said they will work with the deans.

Meeting face to face with legislators is important for getting Eastern’s name established in Congress, Nilsen said, and it is what helped Eastern begin to get involved with lobbying at the state level in 1996.

“It was a good beginning of our efforts to be more active at the federal level,” Nilsen said. “And having face-to-face contact with those legislators is an important part of the process. Establishing name recognition is difficult if you only try to do that with letters and e-mail.”

The group didn’t discuss where the national or state economy may be headed in the next few years, but Nilsen said the legislators did acknowledge it is one of the many things that have changed drastically since the events of Sept. 11. She and Hencken were struck by the elevated level of security at the Capitol building. They spent 2 1/2 hours after arriving on Friday in a grounded airplane after a security breach prevented the plane from docking.