Student Government passed a proposal urging the Boston University administration to overturn its decision to drop the wrestling program after the 2013-14 season at a senate meeting Monday night.
Matt Belikov, a member of BU wrestling, said the administration informed the team of its decision April 1 with little notice before the news was released publicly.
“We’re here to ask for a resolution to help us have the student body support in having this decision overturned,” Belikov, a College of Arts and Sciences freshman, said.
SG President and School of Management junior Aditya Rudra said SG support for the wrestling team is justified based on the information available.
“There was not sufficient notice and sufficient reason given to the wrestling team,” Rudra said. “They have shown themselves to be great students and great members of our community. They have a 100-percent graduation rate. Given those factors, I don’t think they were treated fairly.”
SG also passed a proposal to make Project Lever available to students. The tool is a user-friendly site that links students to resources such as previous student research projects, faculty and graduate student profiles, courses, research grants, scholarships and library resources.
“We are an educational technology that is trying to help students do more research or navigate university resources for large academic projects,” said Project Lever Chief Operating Officer Ian Clark.
Rudra said officials of other college student governments who were familiar with Project Lever said the product is beneficial for students.
“I think that it [Project Lever] is really useful, and we definitely would love to see it at BU,” he said.
Officials introduced an additional three proposals to be decided on during future senate meetings, including a proposal to support Boston College Students for Sexual Health in light of the recent conflict surrounding the group’s distribution of condoms on BC’s campus.
BC freshman Evan Goldstein, a representative of BC Students for Sexual Health, said the BC administration contacted the group with a letter March 31 regarding their operation of “Safe Sites,” which provided students with condoms and information regarding sexual health.
Goldstein said administrators decided students running Safe Sites were not upholding their obligation to respect Jesuit values because they were distributing contraceptives from campus dormitories, and if the group members continued their action they would be subject to disciplinary action.
“As I said in the meeting, a lot of what we’re trying to do is rally support,” Goldstein said. “Not just within the BC community, but from groups at other universities to show that this is an issue that people have very passionate feelings about.”
Rudra said Goldstein brought an important issue to the senate’s attention.
“We have very liberal views on this campus for sexual health and such,” he said. “It’s important for those students over there [at BC] to have access to those resources as well.”
In addition to the proposal to support BC Students for Sexual Health, Divest BU member Colby Smith, a College of Engineering junior, visited the Senate asking for its support. Divest BU is a student coalition that urges the university to divest endowment from fossil fuel companies.
Both resolutions will be voted on at the next senate meeting.
During the meeting, President of Brownstone Residence Housing Association Marc Salerno introduced an amendment to the SG constitution that would create a House of Representatives allowing for the voice of student groups not represented in the Senate to be heard.
“Everybody outside of that [the Senate] who is not directly represented will have a chance to have their voice heard,” Salerno, a CAS sophomore, said. “There’s over 500 student groups on campus through SAO.”
Salerno’s plan for a House of Representatives consisted of an executive board including leadership from SG, the individual college governments and the RHA Overarching Executive Council.
Rudra said the amendment proposal may have been inspired by frustration among students about tuition increases and concerns surrounding gender-neutral housing and medical amnesty.
“I would say that there’s been a lot of frustrating experiences for SG in the past year or so,” Rudra said. “… Coming out of this frustration is the feeling that SG can be optimized to have a stronger voice.”
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