President Bill Perry will “Escape from Old Main” today for three hours to make himself available to interact with students.

“I was thinking about how so much of our communication nowadays is by email, texting, Facebook and things like that, and I know how much we value personal relationships here at Eastern,” Perry said. “What I thought was that I could take the opportunity to be in one place for a period of time in places where students are likely to be, like residence hall lounges and the (Martin Luther King Jr. University) Union.”

Students can approach Perry with anything they want to talk about such as an idea for implementing a program that Eastern should have or different ways to recruit students, Perry said.

“If you are a student and you have an idea about Eastern or a way to improve Eastern, you can sit down with me and tell me what is on your mind,” Perry said. “If you would like to let me know about something you think we are doing particularly well, then that’s good information for me too.”

Perry said he likes being able to generate more personal interactions with students and he usually converses with them at fine arts events, athletic events and at the University Food Court.

“I also interact with students by just walking around or meeting with students involved in service, tailgating and groups like the Panther Marching Band and the student government,” Perry said. “I meet students in a lot of different ways and a lot of it is organized and some of it is not.”

He said he thought “Escape from Old Main” would open a door to meet more students who aren’t involved in those groups and who haven’t crossed paths with him yet.

“If I am sitting in one place and they know that I am going to be there it gives them the opportunity to come by,” Perry said.

Six dates for “Escape from Old Main” have been scheduled during this semester.

“If the first two or three start well, then we will hopefully start scheduling another six or eight times for the spring because we schedule things fairly far in advance because some things have long timelines like conferences and things like that,” Perry said.

Students who speak with Perry at the event will be given a sticker that says “I helped President Perry Escape from Old Main,” and it will have the program logo on it.

The first “Escape from Old Main” event is from noon to 3 p.m. today in the Taylor Hall Lobby.

“The No. 1 goal is to sit and talk with the students, and if I can fill up the whole three hours talking to students then I will be very happy,” Perry said.

Rachel Rodgers can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].