Three students from ETSU who attended a Tennessee Intercollegiate State Legis-lature (TISIL) retreat in Nashville two weeks ago are working to make an impact on a state level rather than just at ETSU.
Nathan Bailey, Tiffany Porter and Chris Beumer attended the retreat for TISL’s governor’s staff.
TISL was founded 35 years ago by Dr. Douglas Carlisle and is the nation’s first mock legislature for college students.
Students present and debate legislation in an environment that is similar to Tennessee’s own General Assembly.
The last TISL was held in November 2002 when 11 students from ETSU attended the five-day event.
Bailey, Porter and Beumer have all been appointed to the governor’s staff which has 16 members total, with seven of those being the Executive Council.
Bailey said that although the governor’s staff is made up of students from several different schools, he believes that ETSU has the largest number of students presiding on the staff.
Porter was appointed the Eastern Corporate Recruit-ment chair. She is trying to raise $5,000 in funding for next year’s TISL.
Porter must talk with local businesses to try to get the money. Although $5,000 is the goal, she believes that she can raise $10,000.
Beumer was appointed the chair of Eastern Recruitment of New Schools. He has to try to recruit three or more new schools for next year’s TISL.
Beumer will be traveling to other schools in order to recruit them. He has plans to travel to the University of Tennessee campuses at Knoxville and Chattanooga.
Bailey is a member of the Governor’s Executive Council. He will be serving as the speaker pro tempore of the Senate at next year’s TISL, which is set for Nov. 19-23.
Bailey’s duties will include filling in for the lieutenant governor during assembly when she is unable to preside over the Senate. Bailey said that he and the lieutenant governor would basically split the time in half.
Bailey will preside over debate and proposals of legislation.
Another ETSU student, David Lane, was also given a prominent position in next year’s TISL. “While at the retreat, the Executive Council voted that David Lane would be chief justice for the next TISL,” he said.
Bailey said that the four of them are trying to make an impact on a statewide level, rather that just in campus involvement.
Part of this will be done by pushing a bill that proposes a Tennessee Campus Compact which will set unify universities in the state of Tennessee with service-learning programs. This would allow them to apply for funding from the National Campus Compact.
Bailey said that this would also allow the colleges to join together and form better ideas. He hopes that the state office could be at ETSU.
“We want to be the university that runs with it,” Bailey said.
Bailey said that the ETSU section of TISL will be working hard to see that this bill is passed.
“ETSU wants to be the state leader in service-learning,” he said. “We are trying to help the administration achieve that goal.”
Bailey hopes that ETSU’s strong involvement in TISL will benefit the students on his own campus as well as students across the state.
“We are trying to make a positive impact at ETSU,” he said.

Author