While one function of the Illinois Student Senate is to create and discuss resolutions that impact the University, another way student senate members fulfill their role is by listening to speakers from outside the ISS discuss issues relevant to campus life.

One such speaker addressed the weekly congregation of ISS members Wednesday evening.

Kelly Bridgewater, a representative from Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services (CITES), attended the meeting to discuss University e-mail services with the student senate.

“Forty percent of students are forwarding their mail outside Express,” Bridgewater said. “We’re losing student interest, and we wonder if we should continue to provide an e-mail tool.”

Members of the student senate discussed their opinions on improving the current system with Bridgewater, with one proposal being the potential outsourcing of e-mail services at the University to a provider such as Yahoo! or Google.

Concerns about the privacy of student e-mail as well as the amount of storage within the Express system were also brought up, and though Bridgewater emphasized that CITES was merely investigating its options at this point, and could not foresee any decisions being made without student input.

With the amount of time utilized by guest speakers, however, the ISS voted to pass over items for information on Wednesday and instead go straight to resolutions up for a vote. One of the resolutions, authored by the senate’s Government Affairs Committee, called on students at the University to exercise their right to vote during Tuesday’s general election. The resolution passed by a count of 17-1.