9 16

VOL. 99 | NO. 17Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014 “TELL THE TRUTH AND DON’T BE AFRAID”

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THEDailyEastErnnEws

HIGH ON CENTRAL TIMEPokey LaFarge and friends provide cultural experience of various genres Monday in the Doudna Fine ArtsCenter

PAGE 3

RUNNING HIGH AND LOWThe Eastern football team rushed for a season-high 180 yards at Illinois State, despite losing Walter Payton Award candidate Shepard Little.

PAGE 8

WHO’S UP? WHO’S DOWN?

GR APHIC BY ANTHONY C ATEZONE

ILLINOIS UNIVERSITIES

FALL ENROLLMENT

25,000

20,000

15,000

10,000

5,000

2013

2014

EIU ISU NIU SIUC SIUE WIU

9,7758,913

20,27220,615

21,13820,611

17,96417,989

13,85013,972

11,70711,458

By Jack CruikshankStaff Reporter | @DEN_News

With Eastern’s fall enrollment decreasing by approximately 8 percent compared to fall 2013, three similar public universities around the state also tolerated a decrease in enrollment.

Western and Northern Illinois Universities, currently have a smaller fall enrollment versus fall 2013.

Meanwhile, four other universities around the state have experienced an increase in enrollment as compared to their enrollment numbers from fall 2013.

The University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, South-ern Illinois University-Carbondale and Illinois State University each have an increased enroll-ment of about 1 percent higher than a year ago.

President Bill Perry said the university has in-creased financial opportunities for students as part of an enrollment initiative, but competition has been a setback.

“We have put more money into institutional aid in the past three years; however, some oth-er institutions appear to have increased aid,” Per-ry said.

Perry said Eastern’s approach this year in-cluded getting students with better ACT scores and better grade point averages as part of the university strategic plan toward excellence.

Eastern enrollment decreases more than competitors

ENROLLMENT, page 5

By Samantha MiddendorfEntertainment Editor | @Samantha_EE

The Doudna Fine Arts Center has not experienced a significant decrease in ticket sales for its 2014-15 performance season despite an enrollment decrease.

Dan Crews, director of patron services at Doudna, said despite the lack of students, Doudna is not deal-ing with a decrease of interest in their performances.

“When you always have a lower population of stu-dents, you’re going to get the threat that there are few-er students that are going to come out because that pool is smaller,” he said. “However, so far, we’ve not experienced that.”

Eastern’s enrollment has decreased from 9,775 in the Fall 2013 semester to 8,913 this semester, which is a reduction of 862 students or nine percent.

Despite the fact that there is not a decrease in stu-dent participation, Crews said Doudna is always try-ing to increase student participation.

Doudna performances have seen an increase in student participation through classes requiring stu-dents to attend performances for class credit.

“We have a good amount of students who come to our performances whether it’s for their enjoyment or for class,” Crews said. “Some classes require stu-dents to see so many artistic things and sometimes theater classes might require students to see a particu-lar production.”

Crews also said it is hard to tell if the enrollment

decrease will manifest an impact on Doudna, because it is so early in the season.

Doudna works to draw audiences with traditional social media use and other creative outlets.

“We need to market strongly to the students,” Crews said. “We use Facebook or Instagram or Twit-ter to get their attention, and we’ve also got a coupon in the campus coupon books for two for one tickets.”

A large amount of ticket sales also comes from the city of Charleston, and Doudna does not solely look to attract a student audience.

The most recent concert at Doudna has shown a large amount of popularity, resulting in a positive im-pact on ticket sales.

“Pokey LaFarge has taken a lot of community and regional interest,” Crews said. “We’re taking a lot of phone calls from St. Louis, Bloomington and India-napolis from people wanting to come to the event.”

Overall, Crews said the biggest influence the en-rollment decrease has had on Doudna is the availabil-ity of students looking for jobs.

“When you have fewer students, you have few-er students who are involved in productions,” Crews said. “I have a smaller pool to chose from when I hire ushers or box office people, but the decrease in enroll-ment hasn’t affected Doudna much.”

Samantha Middendorf can bereached at 581-2812

or [email protected].

By Roberto HodgeMulticultural Editor | @BertoHodge

The Office of Civil Rights and Diversity pushes through their work load despite the de-parture of Cynthia Nichols, the former Civil Rights and Diversity director.

Robert Miller, the Eastern general counsel, is also the manager and supervisor of the office.

Miller said the responsibilities and work load is being divided amongst Heather Dra-goo, the assistant director of civil rights, and Leah Reynolds, the interim assistant director of civil rights.

Miller said because of the fiscal challenges the university is currently facing, he is serving as their supervisor, which will allow the next president of Eastern to decide how the office will be run.

President Bill Perry’s presidential term will end June 2015.

Miller said they have not begun the hiring and search process for a new director, despite the three-month departure of Nichols.

“I am intimately familiar with the process and responsibilities of the civil rights office,” Miller said. “I have continued to work closely with the civil rights office during my tenure as general counsel.”

Before working as the general counsel, Mill-

er had worked at the office of Civil Rights and Diversity for nine years.

Miller said the position is similar to many other directors of any office.

The director must file reports, be a forward thinker and provide leadership for the office.

Both Dragoo and Reynolds have worked closely consulting and making sure any issues get solved in a timely fashion, Miller said.

Miller said Dragoo has continued to review hiring files and paperwork since Nichols’ June departure.

He added the process is moving along smoothly; however, hiring has slowed consid-erably.

The slow down as result of the hiring freeze has helped the office devote more time to work towards the goal of eliminating all forms of discrimination, sexual harassment and assault.Their goal is to also increase contact with stu-dents in the areas of diversity and sexual assault awareness, Miller said.

“Heather and Leah work very well together, and we all developed a good rapport,” Miller said. “We maintain good lines of communica-tion and we regularly discuss initiatives, issues and resolutions.” Roberto Hodge can be

reached at 581-2812or [email protected].

Doudna avoids low enrollmenteffects, ticket sales stay consistent

Civil Rights and Diversity director search yet to start

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2 THE DAILY EASTERN NEWS | NEWS TUESDAY, SEPT. 16, 2014

By Blake Warman Staff Reporter | @Blake Warman

Charleston City Council plans to proclaim Fire Prevention Week from Oct. 5 until Oct. 11.

The council will meet to review this at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the council chambers at City Hall.

The local Charleston Fire Depart-ment and Emergency Services host Fire Prevention Week every year.

This year’s theme will be “Work-ing Smoke Alarms Save Lives: Test Yours Every Month.”

During the week, the local fire de-partment will spend time teaching

the community fire prevention. They will also be going to local

schools to teach students about pre-vention.

When they spend time at these schools, they will run fire drills to get students involved.

The fire department will use this opportunity to teach the students about fire safety and what to do in an emergency.

On Saturday, the Charleston Fire Department will host an open house at the fire station.

The open house will have differ-ent activities for kids as well as dem-onstrations on fire safety.

The council will also review al-lowing Deborah Meadows to have a rear yard setback at 1620 Monroe Ave.

Currently, Meadows has a ga-rage on her property she wishes to change to a living space.

The current garage is within the requirements of the zoning regula-tions.

Meadow does not plan to change anything dealing with the structure of the building.

Meadows also went through the neighborhood and had people sign a petition to allow her to do this.

The petition stated that the lo-

cal neighborhood understood and had no disagreements with Mead-ows changing the garage to a living space.

The Board of Zoning Appeals and Planning previously approved this setback unanimously.

The council will also review the approval of three raffle licenses.

These raffle licenses will be for the Lincoln Fire Protection District, The Charleston Police Department and the American Cancer Society.

Blake Warman can be

reached at 581-2812or [email protected].

City Council hosting Fire Prevention Week

Pride: new office hours, focus groupsBy Katie Smith Online Editor | @DEN_News

Eastern’s Pride organization was granted office space in the multicul-tural building during the last school year, and with it the opportunity to utilize new ideas the group plans to execute this semester.

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and ally organization had been inquiring about a definitive resource center in years past, and last year’s opening has allowed the group to expand upon the services they offer to the community.

Pride’s president, Jason Haar-mann, a senior mathematics major, said having a physical presence is an important element for the group.

“It provides a more static space versus Pride, where we only meet once a week for an hour,” Haar-mann said.

Although members of Pride said they are relieved to have gained of-fice space, their struggle now lies in finding the funds to supply the cen-ter with useful resources.

“Last year was really the start up year,” Haarmann said. “That’s why we’re just starting to utilize it, too – because it’s so new.”

The resource center is current-ly staffed by one graduate assistant with the following office hours: Mondays from 9 a.m. to noon, Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to noon and 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 2:20 p.m. to 5 p.m., Thursdays from 9 a.m. to noon and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Although Pride officers and advi-sory board members will be in and out of the center each day, Joanna Stauder, vice president of Pride, said she hopes the resource center can

develop a larger staff in the future.“I think that’ll help people feel

more comfortable that if they need to talk to someone about something they can come talk to us directly rather than having to go through someone else,” Stauder, a sopho-more biology major, said.

In the meantime, the group is working toward establishing new focus groups that will meet outside Pride’s scheduled weekly gatherings to further look over topics relevant to particular subgroups within the LGBTQA community.

“We’ve also just started a coming-out group, too,” Haarmann said. “So people who just started the pro-cess of coming out or just want a place to talk about their coming out experience can come and have a safe environment to do that in.”

Haarmann, who will lead the coming-out focus group, said his

involvement in Pride gave him the courage to come out as a gay man.

“I really wanted a space to ex-plore my identity because there re-ally wasn’t a place to do that in Eff-ingham, where I grew up. I want-ed to figure out ways of coming out to my family,” he said. “It gave me a chance to solidify my identity since I hadn’t done that so strongly.”

Haarmann hopes that in his final year at Eastern, he can leave future students with resources, which may be as helpful to them as Pride was for him.

“A lot of schools actually have these focus groups,” he said. “We fought so hard for the space and now we want to think of ways we can utilize it.”

Katie Smith can bereached at 581-2812

or [email protected].

K ATIE SMITH | THE DAILY EASTERN NE WSDestiny Rose, a freshman computer sciences and mathematics major leans on her girlfriend's, Hannah Kelly, a freshman theater arts major, shoulder dur-ing Pride Monday in the Charleston/Mattoon Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union. Kelly told the story of their relationship. The two have been together since they were 13.

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3TUESDAY, SEPT. 16, 2014 THE DAILY EASTERN NEWS | CAMPUS

Do you need to get real work experience in healthcare, social/human services, psychology or related fields? Are you a leader with an enthusiastic attitude who is always looking for ways to help others? Do you have a bit of college debt, or are you in need of some extra spending money? Do you need a flexible work schedule to help you meet those needs? CTF ILLINOIS is looking for you! Direct Service Personnel needed to assist individuals with developmental disabilities with daily living skills & individual goals in group homes in Charleston AND Mattoon. FT & PT flexible shifts available during early AMs, evenings, & overnights, must be available weekends and holidays. FT positions are eligible for insurance benefits. Must be 18 years old w/ HS diploma/GED. Requires successful completion of criminal background checks. Requires valid driver’s license with satisfactory driving record. Apply in person, or mail your application to: CTF ILLINOIS, Attention Melissa Moxley, 6081 Development Dr. Charleston IL. 61920. We are located east of SBLHC on Loxa Road. HR fax: 217-348-8823. CTF ILLINOIS is a not-for-profit, Illinois-based organization providing supports and services to individuals with developmental disabilities. www.ctfillinois.org E.O.E.

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By Roberto HodgeMulticultural Editor | @BertoHodge

The Chinese acrobats will be flip-ping, jumping and somersault-ing through the air at 8 p.m. Friday in the Grand Ballroom of the Mar-tin Luther King Jr. University Union as part of Eastern’s annual Family Weekend.

Darius Francis, the University Board chair, said this is not the first

time the acrobats have been on cam-pus, and because of its success the UB keeps bringing the acrobats back.

The last time the acrobats were on campus was between 2011 and 2012, Francis said.

Francis said there will be six peo-ple including an interpreter who will explain to the audience what exactly is going on.

He said there will be a Q-and-A session where the interpreter will re-

lay the history and significance of what is happening with the acrobats, which will be an educational compo-nent to the show.

“Students are here to experience something new,” Francis said. “It’s just pure entertainment with an ed-ucational component.”

Francis said the show will be a family event and some aspects of it are being brought back from previous years, such as Chinese lanterns.

The show is a way for the board to provide entertainment for all ages and groups, especially those who have yet to see the acrobats perform in person, Francis said.

He said everyone who watches the performance enjoys the show and it is also a good way to promote cultur-al diversity with an educational and family entertainment aspect.

Francis said based on the many people who have come to see the

show in the past, the UB is expect-ing to get a good turnout of people during the Family Weekend perfor-mance.

“Students are here to experience something new,” Francis said. “It could be a once in a lifetime oppor-tunity.”

Roberto Hodge can bereached at 581-2812or [email protected].

Chinese acrobats to return for Family Weekend

RE VIE W

CHYNNA MILLER | THE DAILY EASTERN NE WSPokey Lafarge performs with members of his band Monday during the Pokey Lafarge Central Time Tour in the Dvorak Concert Hall in the Doudna Fine Arts Center.

By Samantha MiddendorfEntertainment Editor | @Samantha_EE

A mel t ing pot o f o f Ca jun, blues, country, folk and songwrit-er music filled the Dvorak Concert Hall of the Doudna Fine Arts Cen-ter Monday night when the Cen-tral Times Tour came to Charles-ton.

Pokey LaFarge, the main act, was greeted by a high-energy crowd to introduce the tour.

“If we don’t see some dancers out tonight, you’re gonna hurt our feelings,” LaFarge said.

Many audience members did not dance, despite the request.

“If there’s people singing along and showing their love next to you, please let them do that,” LaFarge advised.

The show began with its Emcee Dom Flemons began the festival af-ter having some difficulty properly strapping on his guitar with a per-formance of “Have I Stayed Too Long.”

Flemons continued to entertain the crowd before introducing the Loot Rock Gang, a country-rock quartet from St. Louis.

The Loot Rock Gang opened their set with “The Loot Rock Boogie,” while members of the tour danced behind the band and sang along.

The Gang featured an upright bass, baritone saxophone and a husband and wife singing pair.

A decent mix of original songs and covers were performed by the Loot Rock Gange, a l though i t

would have been nice to hear more of their personal work

Dom Flemons once again took the stage and performed a song en-titled “Hot Chicken,” while strum-ming intricately on his guitar.

The Tillers, a bluegrass trio from Cincinatti, took the stage next to perform a handful of their songs including, “The Road Neverend-ing,” “500 Miles,” and “Unpaint-ed Picture.”

The Tillers performed with a mix of different instruments such as the upright bass, acoustic guitar, banjo, fiddle and harmonica.

For their final song, members of the tour playing the trumpet, clari-net and baritone saxophone, joined The Tillers.

And impressive standing ovation was given in response to the ending of The Tillers’ set; however, many audience members left the concert hall at the conclusion of their per-formance and did not return.

Flemons, once again, took the stage while the instruments were reset and attempted to convince the audience to buy merchandise from the band.

Although buying merchandise is important, Flemons could have told the crowd a more appropriate argument, instead of the story he told about the musician’s starving children back home.

Cajun Country Revival, a quar-tet based out of Louisiana, brought arguably the most authentic per-formance to the stage while tour members two-stepped to their beats.

The band performed all their songs in French because of the im-portance of the Cajun music histo-ry.

B a n d m e m b e r J e s s e L e g e brought the best musicality to the stage with his 47 years of experi-ence and membership of the Lou-isiana Music Hall of Fame.

Despite their impressive per-formance, Cajun Country Revival played past their set time, putting

the rest of the show roughly five minutes behind schedule.

LaFarge and his five-piece band took the stage at 9:35 p.m. and en-couraged the audience to stand and dance along.

It only took two and a half hours for a few members to bob along to the beat of the music.

LaFarge performed fan-favorite tunes, “City Summer Blues,” and “What the Rain Will Bring,” that

thematically transitioned through the seasons.

Audience members seemed to enjoy LaFarge’s witty humor and personality while he joked about the Chicago Cubs and the impor-tance of staying hydrated with wa-ter and beer.

Samantha Middendorf can be reached at 581-2812

or [email protected].

Central Time Tour brings mix of culture

4 TheDailyEastErnnEwsW W W. D A I LY E A S T E R N N E W S . C O M

Tuesday, 9.16.14OPINIONS

DEANNA TADLOCK | THE DAILY EASTERN NE WS

Everything we shut our eyes to, ev-erything we run away from, every-thing we deny, denigrate, or de-spise, serves to defeat us in the end.

- Henry Miller

Today’s quote:

Last week, I wrote (half-jokingly and half-seriously) about lists of party college rankings and their irrelevance.

I noted that Eastern rarely, if ever, appears on any of these lists. Eastern may not be on the list of top keg-standing col-leges in the Midwest, but I did see our school appear on another list recently.

Eastern was ranked No. 4 on U.S. News & World Report’s list of top public regional schools in the Midwest.

Now, before we all start patting our-selves on the back, we must ask: does this matter and should we care, or is this just another farce of a list taking up space on the Internet?

Well, if you do a quick Google search, you can find criticism of U.S. News’ annu-al lists nearly from their conception in the mid 1980s. Last year, The Atlantic even gave readers an “annual reminder to ignore the U.S. News & World Report College Rankings.”

The article gives links to criticisms, reports and essays written over the years about the rankings, but sums it up say-ing that, yeah, we should probably ignore these.

But we won’t because, they’re, well, entertaining.

People love ranking things. Everything needs to be ranked. Research is hard and looking at things from all the different perspectives of how one thing could pos-

sibly be better than another is also hard, so screw it, throw together some rankings with little-to-no context and people might be interested enough to click on a link.

Did we really settle the argument of the best 90s throwback jams ranked on Buzzfeed? Probably not, but who cares? People clicked on the link. Everything else is small potatoes (Potato rankings: 1. Mashed, 2. French fried, 3. Sweet, and at 99999. Au gratin. Any disagreements over said rankings should be sent to Daily East-ern News Opinions Editor Rob Downen at [email protected].)

I guess I’m a sucker, too, because I clicked the link, only to find Eastern ranked fourth (fourth! We wouldn’t even medal!) in a subcategory of a subcategory of a subcategory.

Actually, if you look closely, Eastern is tied for fourth. Tied for fourth with the University of Wisconsin—La Crosse. So does it even matter? I should have went to

UW-La Crosse. What a mistake I made. I mean, accord-

ing to this list, they’re practically the same school.

The maker’s of this list, I’m sure, were up for many sleepless nights debating on who should be No. 4. Us or them?

Eventually they just couldn’t come to a decision. I mean, can you blame them?

Anyway, I hate to say it, but I don’t think these rankings matter. This is even putting aside that the U.S. News & World Report will often change its ranking crite-ria from year to year, making it difficult to show which schools are actually “getting better” or that these aren’t really rankings of the quality of education you’re getting.

I’m not saying that Eastern is a bad school. It’s not. I don’t care if it’s No. 4 or 44 or 444.

I picked Eastern because I thought it was the right school for me based on a number of variables like location, cost, size and what my parents and I thought would be right for me.

That’s how you should be picking your schools, by what works for you, not what works for some school to get ranked on an Internet list.

Dominic Renzetti is a senior family and con-sumer sciences major. He can be reached at

581-2812 or [email protected]

Dominic Renzetti

Eastern: No. 4 in rankings, No. 1 in my heart

STAFF EDITORIAL

Russia cuts it close before the Olympics

Letter to the Editor:All hope is not lost for Illinois politics

I applaud the Daily Eastern News for encouraging young people to get involved with our government.

However, I take issue with encour-aging young people to get involved while at the same time portraying our state government as hopelessly cor-rupt.

Despite Illinois notoriety for cor-ruption, research from the New York Times, the Washington Post and The Center for Public Integrity place Illi-nois in better standing than other states.

The governor of Texas was recent-ly served with an indictment, and the former governor of Virginia was just convicted of corruption charges.

While Illinois isn’t perfect, it’s not a cesspool from which there is no escape.

Why would young people want to get involved if they think the game is already rigged?

There is hope for a better tomor-row, and young people can help make that happen by getting informed, involved and most importantly, vote.

Steve AndersonGraduate Student,

Political Science Department

Eastern’s student body continues to hemorrhage as enrollment plum-mets year after year — with the latest census boasting a nearly 900 stu-dent drop off from last fall semester. What these numbers should sig-nal to the administration is that a drastic plan is needed — and whatev-er they were doing is no longer working.

Hailed for a number of years through word of mouth as “Illinois’s best kept secret,” Eastern now must deal with the reality that the word-of-mouth and reputation manner of gaining students no longer works.

An aggressive plan needs implementation — one that will reach all corners of Illinois.

Area high schools are a great way to begin to help increase enroll-ment, even with the university saying there is a six percent drop in high school graduates. Despite this perceived drop in high school num-bers, places like Charleston High School are still prime real estate to sell Eastern. Because if you can’t sell to a high school in your own backyard, then you probably won’t have much luck elsewhere.

Making sure that the “best kept secret” comes out and is prominent in other areas as well should be next on the list. A spike in enrollment from other areas in Illinois can really help to turn the school around and reshape programs to better enhance the learning experience.

Instead, there is a lack of knowledge about the university. At every Board of Trustees meeting last semester, someone read off the number of articles that mentioned Eastern quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo lead-ing up to the draft.

The reason for this was simple: Garoppolo’s connection to Eastern gave the university publicity, which helped make people (read: poten-tial students) more aware of the school. The administration should use

this tactic on all fronts: give the university more publicity to the state and surrounding states.

No longer can Eastern be a “best kept secret,” but instead it needs to a prominent figure in the state of Illinois. It needs to work as an insti-tution that makes an aggressive effort to gain an enrollment. As a uni-versity, it should grow, or else wither and die.

And that puts Chris Dearth, the director of admissions, in a unique place. Coming in during the summer, Dearth had no control of how enrollment and recruitment was handled, but was instead given this hand to play.

After this semester, though, he can use new strategies and designs to help alleviate our enrollment woes. With an enrollment that is steadily dropping, hopefully there’s nowhere to go but up.

But there needs to be a change from the old way of handling admis-sions and recruitment. There needs to be some sort of turnaround. By reaching every part of Illinois as well as states like Missouri and Indi-ana, we can bring the enrollment up.

Eastern is “Illinois’s best kept secret” — that’s why we all came here. But it’s time that secret was let out so that our university does not con-tinue to dwindle in the numbers.

The 862-student-drop from last semester should be a wake up call that maybe the way it’s been done before is a relic of the past. Look-ing to the future, a new, invigorated plan will help solve the enrollment decline.

Visibility, publicity key to fighting enrollment woes

Editor in Chief Bob Galuski

Managing Editor Anthony Catezone

Photo EditorChynna Miller

Online EditorKatie Smith

Opinions Editor Robert Downen

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Letters to the editor can be submitted at any time on any topic to the Opinions Editor to be published in The Daily Eastern News. The DEN’s policy is to run all letters that are not libelous or potentially harmful. Letters to the editor can be brought in with identification to The DEN or sent to [email protected].

The daily editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board of The Daily Eastern News.

TUESDAY, SEPT. 16, 2014 THE DAILY EASTERN NEWS | CAMPUS 5

The Vehicle:Eastern’s literary journal

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JASON HOWELL | THE DAILY EASTERN NE WSStudents with Alpha Gamma Delta walk out of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union towards Greek Court after new sorority members received their bids at the end of recruitment on Monday.

Rushin’ in the rain

By Debby HernandezAdministration Editor | @DEN_News

Eastern administrators are look-ing into init iat ives to help in-crease university enrollment num-bers for next fall.

Among several ideas to increase enrollment, President Bill Perry said program growth will be used to help with enrollment numbers.

“At the graduate level, we are using online instruction more for master’s programs,” he said.

Onl ine degree programs in -cluding Master of Arts in art and music, and Master of Science in Communication Disorders and Sciences and in Family and Con-sumer Sciences have been added to attract more students.

A new online master’s program

in health studies is also in the pro-cess of being made available.

“In the meanwhile, we won’t sit around and wait,” Perry said.

He said the university has tak-en action signing a contract with the International Information Sci-ence Research Institute in Beijing, China.

The contract consists of a one-plus-one MBA program, in which students study one year in china and the second year at Eastern

Perry said there are currently 25 students in this program.

A one-plus-three program has also been contracted with the in-st itution for business and eco-nomics.

Under this program, students complete one year at the institu-tion, before they come to Eastern

for their sophomore year.“This will bring in 100 sopho-

mores next fall,” Perry said.In terms of enrollment num-

bers, his expectations were close to results.

“I was expecting an overall of about 9,000,” Perry said. “It is what it is, we got a great freshman and transfer class.”

Meanwhile, Chris Dearth, the director of Admissions, said the idea is to create a more robust re-cruitment plan.

Dearth said top schools in the state have been targeted for re-cruitment.

“ We h a v e v i s i t e d l o t s o f schools al l over the state with-in a three-hour radius, and will cont inue to do so throughout the fall,” he said.

Also, he explained, improve-ments in communications are an-other strategy to help bring up en-rollment for next year.

“We are planning stages of re-f in ing our communica t i on s ,” Dearth said.

He said email, phone calls, so-cial media, and campaigning are strategies, which are currently be-ing used to get students interested in attending Eastern.

Dearth said part of the chang-es include making the internal ad-missions process more efficient.

“We want to improve the com-munication we have with students after they are admitted to EIU and after submitting their depos-it,” Dearth said. “Part of this is to get applications and decisions done in a timely fashion”

The goal for this year is to im-prove enrollment from previous years, he said.

“I think we will see a stop in the decreas ing t rend,” Dear th said. “Overall, student enrollment will not increase over night”

He said the goal also includes communicat ing to prospect ive students that there are many op-portunities at Eastern.

“It is a matter of being more proactive and letting them know what is so special about EIU,” Dearth said.

Debby Hernandez can bereached at 581-2812

or [email protected].

Administration implements enrollment strategies

SIU-E gained 122 students and currently claims 13,972 students, while SIU-C gained 25, and is cur-rently at 17,989.

U of I gained 0.5 percent, cur-rently at 43,603. ISU gained 343

students this fall, and currently in-structs 20,615 students.

Perry said various factors con-tributed to low enrollment num-bers in some Illinois institutions.

“ The economy, a f fo rdab i l i -

ty, more competition from private and out-of-state institutions, and the number of high school gradu-ates going down—all of those fac-tors are creating changes in transi-tions,” he said.

Eastern’s drop of 8.8 percent (currently 8,913) is the largest per-centage drop of the schools, with Western losing 2.1 percent (cur-rently 11,458) and Northern los-ing 2.5 percent (currently 20,611).

Jack Cruikshank can bereached at 581-2812

or [email protected].

Debby Hernandezcontributed to this article.

» ENROLLMENT CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1Southern Il l inois-Edwardsville, Southern Il l inois- Carbondale, University of I l l inois and Il l inois State see gains in student enrollment

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By Bob ReynoldsStaff Reporter | @BobReynoldsDEN

Confidence is riding high with the Eastern rugby team as it heads to St. Charles, Mo., on Tuesday to face off against Lin-denwood.

The Panthers have not played in 17 days, since their 64-5 loss to the Wisconsin All-Stars back on Aug. 30.

Eastern coach Frank Gra-ziano said he expects his team to play a lot better in Tuesday’s game, mainly because of the fact that the team has had ex-cellent practices during the last two weeks.

“I believe we have made the right adjustments,” he said. “I believe everybody is ready to show what we’re capable of two weeks into the season. I believe they are eager to go out and play to prove how much better we are now than we were two weeks ago.”

Throughout the last couple

weeks, the Panthers’ main fo-cus has been to improve on the defensive side of the ball, be-cause they allowed 64 points to the Wisconsin All-Stars last time out.

Graziano said the one key to victory is being able to hustle on defense.

“We have been trying, not only to play defense, but play defense at high rate,” he said. “We just have to continue to work at it and that is the way we are going to have to play (Lindenwood).”

On Sept. 7, Lindenwood defeated Northern Illinois 113-7 on the road, and then a week

later traveled up to Davenport, Mich., and lost to Davenport University 20-5. Graziano said that was encouraging to see.

“That gives you an idea that if they come across a team that really wants to play defense, they can be held in check a lit-tle bit,” Graziano said. “That hundred points looks like a big number up there, but then you go and play a team that focuses on defense really well and only scores five points, that was re-ally encouraging for our girls to see that if we play defense, we don’t have to score a lot of points to win this game.”

Graziano said there have

been multiple players, main-ly the newcomers who have progressed during the last two weeks.

He said freshman Madi-son Overbay is ready to take that next step and have a break out game, but the key players he said that will need to have a good game are the three se-niors, Kim Youhas, Carissa Burge and Ellen Wilson for the Panthers.

“Those three have got to play super,” he said. “I believe they are ready to play super. I think if they realize they are playing really well, it will just inspire the newcomers. That will make us as a team play re-ally well.”

The Panthers and Linden-wood will start at 7:30 p.m. at Harlen C. Hunter Stadium in St. Charles, Mo.

Bob Reynolds can be reached at 581-2812 or

[email protected].

Panthers confident heading into rugby match against Lindenwood

By Dominic RenzettiAssistant Sports Editor | @domrenzetti

T h e E a s t e r n m e n ’ s and women’s cross coun-try teams competed at the Bradley Intercollegiate on Friday with Eastern record-ing finishes in the top-five for each race.

Freshman Maria Baldwin was the top finisher for the Eastern women’s team, fin-ishing third with a time of 17:13.1.

Sophomore Paxon Me-

nard finished fifth for the men’s team with a time of 25:06.2.

The women’s team also had four other runners fin-ish inside the top-10, with jun ior Vic tor i a Quar ton in f i f th, sophomore Emi-ly Brelsford in sixth, soph-omore Julie James in ninth and sophomore Ivy Handley in tenth.

Quarton had a t ime of 17:21.3 , Bre l s ford had a t i m e o f 1 7 : 2 5 . 7 , Ja m e s had a time of 17:37.4 and

H a n d l e y h a d a t i m e o f 17:45.8.

Other top f inishers for t h e m e n’s t e a m i n c l u d -ed sophomore Riley McIn-erney, who finished in sev-enth place, with a time of 25:19.5 and red-shir t ju-nior Bruyn Yunk finished in 11th with a time of 25:57.9.

Eastern returns to action on Oct. 4 at Louisville.

Dominic Renzetti can be reached at 581-2812

or [email protected].

TUESDAY | 7:30 P.M.HARLEN C. HUNTER STADIUM | ST. CHARLES, MO.

1-10-1

Cross country team runs at Bradley Intercollegiate

Get running.

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TUESDAY, SEPT. 16, 2014 THE DAILY EASTERN NEWS | SPORTS 7

The Governors carried the ball 36 times, but were only able to net 42 yards. The Governors are the only team in the OVC that has not scored a rushing touchdown this season.

Around the OVCEastern Kentucky running back

Dy’Shawn Mobley averaged 20.5 yards per carry, as the junior trans-fer rushed for 123 yards and a touch-down on six attempts.

Mobley, who transferred from Kentucky, led the Colonels to a 55-13 win over Morehead State in their home opener Saturday. Eastern Ken-tucky improved to 3-0 and remained the lone undefeated team in the Ohio Valley Conference.

Mobley took his first carry 61 yards for a touchdown and then set up the Colonels for another touchdown af-ter a 54-yard run. The junior also caught two passes for 10 yards and was named OVC Offensive and New-comer of the Week.

Senior cornerback De’Ante Saun-ders had two interceptions in Tennes-

see State’s 35-7 win over Jackson State Saturday. Saunders was named OVC Defensive Player of the week.

The Tigers’ defense put points on the board, as Saunders’ first intercep-tion in the first quarter ended with the Deland, Fla., native trotting into the end zone, returning the pick 45 yards for a touchdown.

Saunders added three tackles and had an additional pass breakup against Jackson State. He has three in-terceptions in the last two games for Tennessee State.

Southern Illinois-Carbondale de-feated Southeast Missouri 50-23 on Saturday, but sophomore kicker Ryan McCrum made three field goals and two extra points for the Redhawks to earn OVC Specialist of the Week.

McCrum’s three field goals came from 38 yards and 43 yards, which established a new career-long for the sophomore.

Aldo Soto can be reached at 581-2812

or [email protected].

Reed continues streakRed-shirt junior Chris Reed net-

ted the Panthers’ only goal in Sun-day’s draw, bringing her scoring streak to four goals in the last four matches. Reed leads the team with eight total points with teammate Meagan Radloff in second with four points.

The last Eastern player to score at least four goals in the non-confer-ence schedule was Kristin Germann, who had four goals during her 2011 junior season.

MacKinnon adds assistKathleen MacKinnon’s assist on

Reed’s goal on Sunday makes her the first player not named Radloff to re-cord an assist for the Panthers this season. It was Mackinnon’s first career assist and first career point since join-ing the Panthers last year.

Mackinnon, from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, dealt with both illness and injury last season, but so far this year has recorded at least one shot in each of the Panthers last five matches.

Around the OVCSouthern Illinois-Edwardsville re-

corded a 1-0 win over MAC oppo-nent Northern Illinois on Sunday, while Morehead State picked up a 2-0 win over ACC-newcomer Louisville on Friday.

Freshman Caroline Hoefert of Southern Illinois-Edwardsville got her first goal of the season in just the 10th minute of the match and the Cougars were able to hold on for the 1-0 win on the road.

Morehead State, which had lost its last 11 meetings with Louisville, got on the board early with a goal from senior forward Jade Flory in the fifth minute. Flory, a transfer from Youngstown State, is already the No. 5 all-team leading scorer at More-head State after only two seasons with the team. She leads the OVC with six goals so far this year. Senior forward Holly Tilley added the second goal at 61:35. Louisville had made two NCAA tournaments in the last three years.

Tennessee-Martin couldn’t pull an

upset over Big 12 opponent Oklaho-ma State on Sunday, falling 1-0 after a goal in the 66th minute by Madi-son Mercado.

Dominic Renzetti can be reached at 581-2812

or [email protected].

By Sean HastingsStaff Reporter | @DEN_Sports

The Eastern women’s tennis team started its fall season winning the No. 1 doubles title at the SIU-Edwardsville Invitational Sunday.

The women went a combined 12-7 in singles and 9-3 in doubles action in Edwardsville.

Senior Sephora Boulbahaiem and freshman Grace Summers paired up and hit past their doubles competition, winning the No. 1 flight title in dou-bles play with a 4-0 record.

The duo defeated the team of Jenna Wallace and Nicole Jones of Western Illinois, 6-0. The doubles’ champions also came away with a very close vic-tory over Aspen Cervin and Madison Cook of Saint Louis, 7-6

Juniors Ali Foster and Hannah Kimbrough had a record of 3-1 at No. 2 doubles as well for the Panthers.

Summers also added a 3-1 record in her singles matches. She won her first match against Arianna Demos of Western Illinois in straight sets, 6-0, 6-0.

Sophomore Kamile Stadalninkaite went 3-1 in her singles matches for Eastern. She was able to win a close match with Madison Cook of Ed-wardsville, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. Stadaln-inkaite also went 2-1 in her doubles matches teaming up with sophomore Kelly Iden.

Director of Tennis John Blackburn said he was pleased with the weekend performance by the Panthers.

He was especially happy with the way the women fought through and were able to win close matches.

“It was a great team effort,” he said.The Eastern women will play host

to Olivet Nazarene on Oct. 6, as the Panthers will play at Darling Courts.

The Eastern men’s tennis team be-gan its fall season, hosting the inaugu-ral EIU invite during the weekend at Darling Courts.

The Panthers combined to go 24-5 in singles play at the two-day event against Olivet Nazarene and Missouri-St. Louis. Eastern also recorded a 10-4 mark in doubles play.

Eastern freshmen Trent Reiman and Grant Reiman each went 6-0 in sin-gles and teamed up to go 3-0 in dou-bles play.

The Panthers also had success com-ing from their returning players.

Juniors Ryan Henderson and Rui

Silva tallied 3-0 records in singles and Sophomore Grant Thompson joined them by also going undefeated in his three singles matches.

Eastern’s men’s tennis coach Eric Stark said he was very happy with how things went during the weekend, as the Panthers debuted their newly reno-

vated Darling Courts.Stark said the consistency was much

better the second day compared to the first day of the opening event for the Panthers.

Like the Reiman brothers, fellow freshman Jared Woodson played in his first collegiate tennis match. Wood-

son said staying concentrated during his matches was the most difficult part playing in college for the first time.

“Just staying focused was the hard-est part because the matches this weekend were like practice matches and the whole point is to just get bet-ter,” he said.

The next time the men play will be at the SIU Saluki Invitational on Oct 18, in Carbondale.

Sean Hastings can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].

JASON HOWELL | THE DAILY EASTERN NE WSSophomore Grant Thompson serves the ball during his match against his Tennessee Tech opponent on the tennis courts of Charleston High School on March 22. The Eastern men’s tennis team opened its fall season at the inaugural EIU invite and hosted Olivet Nazarene and Missouri-St. Louis.

» SOCCER CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8Red-shir t junior Chris Reed adds to goal total for four th straight match.

» RUSHING CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8Kentucky transfer rushes for 123 yards for EKU

Tennis team begins fall with success

UPCOMING MATCHES

SEPT. 19 | VALPAR AISO3 P.M. | LAKESIDE FIELD

SEPT. 21 | CHIC AGO ST.1 P.M. | CHICAGO

SEPT. 26 | SEMO3 P.M. | LAKESIDE FIELD

SEPT. 28 | SIU-E3 P.M. | EDWARDSVILLE

OC T. 3 | BELMONT3 P.M. | LAKESIDE FIELD

8 T H E DA I LY E ASTE R N NEWSD A I LY E A S T E R N N E W S . C O M

T U E S DAY, S E P T. 16, 2014N o. 1 7 , V O L U M E 9 9

SportSSports EditorAldo Soto217 • 581 • [email protected]

@DEN_Sports tweet of the day: #EIU rugby takes on Lindenwood at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in St. Charles, Mo.

By Aldo SotoSports Editor | @AldoSoto21

The Eastern football team rushed for a season-high 180 yards in its loss against Illinois State despite not hav-ing Shepard Little for most of the game.

After a three-yard gain on the Pan-thers’ fifth offensive play of the game, Little came off the ground and head-ed toward the sideline limping. The red-shirt junior running missed the next three Eastern drives before com-ing back with 8:44 left in the second quarter.

Little received back-to-back car-ries when he returned, gaining 12 to-tal yards but came off the field again and did not return for the remainder of the game.

Panthers’ tight end Jeff LePak said

the departure of Little was a blow to Ea s t e rn’s o f -fense.

“Obvious-ly that’s going to hurt us as a unit,” LePak said. “Shep is a big time player for us. There is a reason he was

put on the Wal-ter Payton Award

watch list.”Eastern head coach Kim Dam-

eron said he wanted the Panthers to focus on their run game head-ing into Saturday’s game at Illinois State and specifically said he wanted to get Taylor Duncan more touches.

The Marshall native did get more touches, but it came only after Lit-tle went down with his injury. Dun-can, who only had four carries en-tering the third game of the season, rushed for 87 yards on 14 attempts, both season highs for the red-shirt senior.

Fellow red-shirt senior Jimmy Le-rra added 30 yards on six carries. In Little’s limited participation, he rished for 15 yards on three carries.

“I think Taylor and Jimmy did a good job handling the load,” LeP-ak said.

The tr io of Eastern running backs rushed for 132 yards, which was the first time the Panthers have eclipsed the 100-yard plateau from its running backs this season.

Little’s injury has not been dis-closed.

Eastern will host Austin Peay at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at O’Brien to start Ohio Valley Conference play. The matchup features the only two teams that are winless heading into the conference schedule.

Aus t in Peay lo s t i t s s econd straight game to start the year, as the Governors lost 42-6 against Chattanooga on Saturday.

Chattanooga spoiled the debut of Governors Stadium in Clarksville, Tenn., as the No. 14 ranked Mocs scored in four straight possessions

stretching from the end of the first half into the third quarter. Austin Peay dropped its 14th consecutive game after a 0-12 record last season.

The Governors are in their sec-ond year under head coach Kirby Cannon. After two games this sea-son Austin Peay ranks last in the OVC in both offense and defense.

After allowing 42 points against the Mocs on Saturday, the Gover-nors’ have now been outscored 105-6, following a 63-0 loss on Aug. 30, to Memphis.

Offensively, Austin Peay has aver-aged 163 yards per game this year. The Governors’ lone touchdown of the season came with 7:37 left in the first quarter, when quarterback Darrien Boone threw a 45-yard touchdown pass to Javier Booker on Saturday.

Boone, who is a true freshman, finished 15-of-20 for 124 yards. The running game continued to struggle, though.

JASON HOWELL | THE DAILY EASTERN NE WSRed-shirt junior running back Shepard Little runs the ball up the field during the Panthers’ home opener on Sept. 6 at O’Brien Field. The Panthers lost to the Salukis 38-21. After playing Illinois State on Saturday, the Panthers lost to the Redbirds 34-15 at Hancock Stadium in Normal, Ill.

Eastern rushes for season-high

By Bob ReynoldsStaff Reporter | @BobReynoldsDEN

The Eastern women’s golf team fin-ished in last place at the five-team West-ern Illinois Invitational over the week-end.

The two-day, 36-hole event was held at West-e rn’s home golf course, the par-72, 6,208-yard Harry Mus-s a t t o G o l f C o u r s e i n Macomb.

The Pan-thers shot a team total of 670, finishing 17 strokes be-hind Illinois-Chicago. The Panthers were led by fresh-man Chloe Wong, who

shot a team-best 161. Wong shot a 6-over 78 in the first

round, which was good enough to be in the top five of individual golfers. In round two, Wong dropped a few spots to tenth place after she shot an 11-on-ver 83.

Senior Tiffany Wolf also had a top 20 finish as she shot a 16-over 88 and then in the second round, shooting an 8-over 80.

Annie Getzin finished 24th for East-ern with a total of 173, with her best day coming on day two with shooting a 10-over 82.

Western Illinois took the team title, with a score of 621, finishing 32 strokes ahead of the Panthers.

The Leathernecks were led by Jessi-ca Knepp and Anna Cullinan who fin-ished in the top two for individualists.

Knepp shot a team-best 146 and placed first and Cullinan shot a 154 and finished second overall.

Knepp’s best round came in the sec-ond round when she shot a 1-under 71. Cullinan on the other hand was tied with Knepp after round one, but shot a 7-over 79 in the second round to fall eight shot short at winning the individ-ual title.

Knepp was -1 on all the par fours combined over the weekend and fin-ished with six birdies and 23 pars.

She also led the field with -2 on all of the par fives combined.

Western Illinois had four players fin-ish in the top 12 golfers as Ashley Jeffers shot a consistent 158, with shooting a 79 for both rounds.

Also, Julie Whalen shot a 164 for the tournament with shooting 82 for both rounds.

Indiana State, who came in second place, finished 20 strokes behind West-ern Illinois with a score of 641.

Nebraska-Omaha came in third place followed by Illinois-Chicago.

Kathryn Kesti came in third place for individuals. Kesti shot a 155 (77-78), finishing one stroke ahead of her team-mate Megan Vetrovsky, who came tied for fourth place for individuals with In-diana State’s Amanda Smith.

Eastern will next compete at the Southern Illinois Fall Invite at Hicko-ry Ridge Golf Course in Carbondale on Saturday and Sunday.

Bob Reynolds can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].

Golf team takes 5th at Western

JASON HOWELL | THE DAILY EASTERN NE WSFreshman forward Chloe Gottschalk fights with junior midfielder Erica Stewart in a match on Aug. 31 at Lakeside Field. The Panthers lost to Loui-siana Tech 3-1. After tieing with the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay on Sunday, the Panthers are 0-6 -1 overall.

By Dominic RenzettiAssistant Sports Editor | @domrenzetti

For the first time all season, and the first time in quite a while, the Eastern women’s soccer team finished its only match of the weekend in a draw.

The Panthers’ 1-1 draw against Wisconsin-Green Bay on Sunday at Lakeside Field is the first time the Panthers have had a draw since Oct. 19, 2012, against Morehead State on the road. The Panthers and Eagles tied 1-1 in the second to last weekend of Ohio Valley Conference play that sea-son.

The Panthers’ last draw against a non-conference opponent was a 0-0 finish against Northern Illinois on Sept. 13, 2011. The Panthers had two draws in the 2011 season, both against non-conference teams, also ty-ing IUPUI 2-2 on Sept. 2, 2011.

In Eastern’s first exhibition of the season, it played to a 1-1 draw against

Loyola. Though a tie in an exhibition and a tie in a non-conference match may not seem to mean much, coming away with one point instead of none in the OVC portion of the schedule could change the course of the season for a team.

“In the game of soccer, you have to tie the game sometimes and last year we didn’t have any ties,” Eastern head coach Jason Cherry said before the start of the season. “If we could have got a few ties, maybe we’re sitting here with a conference championship.”

Of the Panthers’ five losses against OVC teams last season, including the first round of the tournament against Southern Illinois-Edwardsville, two of those losses were by just one goal.

For Cherry, it is the first tie in his career since becoming Eastern’s head coach.

Panthers end in draw for first time since 2012

Even without Little, Panthers rush for 180

SHEPARD LIT TLE

WESTERNILLINOIS

INVITATIONAL

1. WESTERN ILLINOIS

2. INDIANA STATE

3. NEBRASKA OMAHA

4. ILLINOIS CHICAGO

5. EASTERN ILLINOIS

SOCCER, page 7

RUSHING, page 7