Summer camps and conferences will bring more than 13,500 high school students to Eastern’s campus this summer, according to the office of Camps and conferences.

Summer camps and conferences are activities engaged in by people other than Eastern students or faculty during the summer semester. Most often camps and conferences involve prolonged stays on campus sharing everything from available classrooms to computer labs and dining services with Eastern students.

During the hurried pace of Eastern’s summer semester, a variety of functions are provided to many visiting high school camps. Large camps like boys and girls state track meets, which bring 4,500 – 5,000 students and select music and journalism camps, can be found throughout campus from May 17 through August 4.

“The camps last from two days to six weeks,” Jody Stone, director of camps and conferences, said.

“The camps work to promote the university in two ways. First and foremost, the summer camps give Eastern a lot of exposure to potential students that we simply couldn’t get by any other means,” Stone said.

Stone estimates 95 percent of the camps visiting Eastern are composed of high school students from Illinois, the majority of which will attend Illinois universities making summer camps an attractive recruitment tool.

New software purchased for the program tracks students from the moment they sign up for an Eastern sponsored camp allowing the program to keep better tabs of university resources being used for camps than in the past.

The new software informs the office of camps and conferences if new students enrolled at Eastern had participated in a camp which provides the program with exact numbers of recruits gained through summer camps and conferences.

The office of camps and conferences estimates the IHSA track meets alone brought 5,000 visitors to Eastern last year generate roughly the same numbers this year.

“Summer camps pay for their use of the university facilities at an average rate of $26 per day per student for room and board. Also, the camps pay for the classrooms they use and are required to pay extra for any facilities and equipment they use,” stated Stone.

Stone noted that camps and conferences visiting from outside Illinois pay higher rates for their use of Eastern’s facilities as they don’t pay standard Illinois taxes throughout the year.

The total brought in each year from camps is just under $1 million, according to the Office of Camps and Conferences.

These recruitment and fiscal benefits boost services offered to Eastern students through the summer semester.

The revenue is gained by utilizing facilities not used by students which helps keep the total number of people using school services higher than if only Eastern students were present.

This allows the university to keep more qualified year-round faculty employed than it would be able to if the camps were not present.

Stone said the campers are usually well behaved even though they tend to be louder than most Eastern students. The number of Eastern student and faculty complaints about the camps and campers has been on a sharp decline over the past five years.

Stone also said that despite expulsion of camps in the past, no camps have been asked to leave for inappropriate behavior in the last five years.

Baker shares the views of Stone concerning the tremendous value of summer camps recruitments and added revenue. He explains that the money the camps are charged to use the recreation center pays for extra student workers at a higher-than-usual wage rate.

Baker says that camps pay to use a limited number of the basketball courts at the student recreation center and are told to use only those parts of the recreation center.

“We make sure to leave enough space so students using the recreation center and campers aren’t right on top of each other. Students studying through the summer semester tend to be a little more on edge than usual.” Baker said.

Baker said student concerns are most often related to minor incidents on the part of campers.

“Generally things like campers being in the weight area acting like teenagers do, wandering upstairs and being a little annoying, basically hanging out where they are not supposed to be is what we usually hear about. Anything more serious than that I report to Stone and it gets dealt with right away.” Baker said.

The biggest concern for the recreation center faculty is making sure the cost of damaged equipment gets billed to the right camp, “which they always pay,” Baker said.

Sandra Nees, Assistant Director of information technology services, said direct contact with the adult representatives from each camp has kept the campers to a low roar in the Triad and other areas of study.

“There are many instances when the campers get a little too noisy for the Eastern students trying to concentrate in the hurried pace of the summer semester, but [sic] few instances where campers become a major problem,” Nees said.

“Summer campers have been kicked off the campus for inappropriate behavior, but those instances are few and far between.” Nees said, “When you add up everything, the camps are, by far, a plus to Eastern.”