BY PAUL BIASCO

STAFF WRITER

Student senator Dan Weber, sophomore in LAS, announced at the Illinois Student Senate meeting Wednesday night the approval of a new University Office of Sustainability, which the senate had urged for in a resolution passed April 30.

Weber represented the senate at a meeting of the Champaign-Urbana sustainability coalition, where he read the resolution that the student senate had passed last spring urging the University to create an Office of Sustainability and a Campus Sustainability Council. Chancellor Richard Herman will head both the offices.

“This is a large success and we were instrumental in it,” Weber said Wednesday night.

The original resolution that had been passed by the student senate on April 30 noted that the University student body showed support for campus sustainability in 2003 and 2007 and that nine of the 11 schools in the Big Ten had major sustainability initiatives.

Weber also presented an item for information to the senate regarding funding for the “Illinites” program on campus. The University has removed all funding from student fees for the events for the 2008-2009 school year which had previously been $1.50 per University student. The budget for 2007-2008 had been $90,000. This number will be cut by two-thirds this year because of the cut in funding from student fees.

The presented information, which will be voted on at next week’s meeting, calls for the service fee advisory committee to fund the program at or above the 2007-2008 level for the 2009-2010 school year.

Weber said that events held by the program, which is to be a fun nonalcoholic alternative on campus, normally host anywhere between 500 and 1,400 people and have had three events attended by more than 3,000.