Eastern is competing in the STANLEY Security Together for Safer Schools Grant Program, a program that would help update Eastern’s current security software.

The purpose of the program is for the top two schools to receive a $150,000 grant to be used in upgrading the school’s security.

Eastern nominated itself for the grant money to help update current security measures.

Travis Gresens, a support specialist from Facilities, Planning and Management, said the competition is a social media campaign.

Students, faculty and staff can vote for Eastern in one of three ways.

They can either log on to the program’s webpage and vote that way, text eiuedu to 334455, or use Twitter to tweet either #stanleysecurity or #eiuedu.

“The money can be used for all types of security for the school,” Gresens said. “It can be use for video cameras, electronic locks and basically anything that STANLEY provides.”

Gresens said Eastern’s participation in the campaign has nothing to do with recent burglary attempts on campus.

Gresens said the added security measures have been in the works for the past six years.

Gresens said if Eastern wins the grant money, the first focus would be updating the security in the academic buildings on campus.

Gresens said this is where the largest amount of student population is found to be at most of the time.

The program is open to every university with the nation; however, it will not be every university against one another other.

The schools will be broken up into three tiers. The first tier is for schools that have 8,000 or fewer students; tier two is for schools with 8,000 to 19,000 students, and tier three is for the larger schools with 20,000 or more students.

Eastern is currently in tier two.

The voting process started on Jan. 19 and will continue until Feb. 13. The top two schools from each tier will be notified by March 3.

The winners will receive various amounts depending on their ranking as well as the size of the school. The runner-ups for tiers 1, 2 and 3 will receive prize money of $25,000, $50,000 and $75,000, respectively.

The top schools for each of the tiers will receive $100,000, $150,000 and $200,000, respectively. In Eastern’s case, the school can either receive $50,000 as a runner-up or receive $150,000 should it become the top-ranking school in their tier.

Eastern is currently in 10th place in tier two, and every vote will count until the end of the voting process.

Luis Martinez can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].