More than 20 students gathered in the Andrews Hall basement to eat pizza—and meet the president of the university.

Pizza with the Prez is a meet and greet event put on by student government to give the student body the opportunity to meet President Bill Perry.

The social is used to help students voice their ideas, opinions or concerns directly to someone in the administration.

The new display boards on campus were one of the topics discussed at the gathering.

Rachel Theesfeld, a junior business management major, said she thinks it helps her job as a resident assistant to have the display boards.

“I think it helps RAs for them to see what’s going on on campus,” she said.

Perry said the display boards will be primarily used to get important information to the students and faculty.

“It’s not like you have to have something up all the time, just special events,” he said.

Perry said he did not expect everyone to on campus to love the display boards.

“We didn’t expect people to like them or not like them,” he said.

Perry said the administration is working on a plan to make Eastern more technology savvy.

“We should be able to give anything to anybody, anywhere, on any device,” he said.

The idea of having financial aid cover classroom expenses was also brought to Perry.

Several students at the social said they had to pay extra expenses for classroom materials or manuals.

Perry said many students and families do not know the financial aid process, and that is where money can be lost.

He said all the expenses and tuition a student may have to pay is calculated.

When a student submits their FAFSA, the federal government calculates how much the family will contribute after the student receives grants or loans, he said.

Perry said once families know that process, they may be able to receive more grants or loans.

He also brought up the idea that many classroom materials cost money because they are copyrighted materials.

Perry said he wanted to talk to the Blair Lord, the provost and vice president for academic affairs, about the possibility of making classroom texts into Adobe PDF files so students could view them on a computer or print the texts out themselves.

Many of the students at the gathering spoke about how they love Eastern and that they get to meet with the president of the university.

Mitch Gurick, a sophomore career and technical education major, said Eastern is great because he has a chance to talk with the president.

“Here you have a human being here,” he said. “What university can you sit down and have pizza with the president?”

Alexis Weck, a sophomore special education major, said at other universities, she would not have been able to meet with someone in administration in an informal setting.

“It’s nice to meet with the president,” she said. “At (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,) you’re just a statistic.”

At one point during the social, Perry replied to a comment about the pizza party being a good event.

“This pizza is a really good thing,” he said. “I love pepperoni.”

Amanda Wilkinson can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].