The Student Union executive board was “not proactive” about bringing student concerns to the administration this year due in large part to conflict among members, but a handful of major projects and proposals were passed through the General Assembly, Union members said.
Committee chairs reported productive terms, but singled out Union President Adil Yunis as a divisive figure. Yunis has said he worked successfully on projects important to him.
Jonathan Pasquale, Technology Committee chairman, said the biggest problem with this year’s e-board was planning how to get proposals to the administration.
“They’ve come up with proposals, and they’ve gone through the GA,” he said. “The problem with the e-board this year is that they failed to push through the planning stages. They never had a plan to go past GA approval.”
Pasquale, a School of Management senior, said one reason so few proposals made it to administrators’ desks was “political tension” within the Union.
“Very frankly, this executive board didn’t get along with one another,” he said.
Pasquale said that while the e-board failed at its duties, the Union’s committees brought some credibility to the organization.
“This exec. board really burned a lot of bridges,” he said. “The committees opened some new bridges.”
Some issues the Technology Committee looked to tackle this year were file-sharing awareness and widespread computer skill improvement on systems like Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint. The committee also hosted an event to teach students about remote printing from their dorm rooms and hosted an evening for students to talk with Recording Industry Association of America officials.
Campus Safety Committee Chairman Leo Gameng characterized his committee’s year as successful. In addition to working on the sexual assault policy, the committee worked on lobbying a state bill, that would make the Board of Higher Education establish a campus rape and sexual assault prevention advisory council for Massachusetts public colleges under the board’s control. The Board of Higher Education does not control BU.
The Safety Committee is also adding 15 more blue light emergency call boxes to campus, Gameng said. The Union will be sponsoring two of the phones and the administration will be responsible for funding the other 13. The phones are slated to be installed by the end of summer.
Despite successes, Gameng said the e-board’s intervention in committee affairs made his and other chairmen’s tasks more difficult, particularly in “having Adil Yunis dictate” to the committees.
“I do not like my committee to be micromanaged, and he tried to micromanage everything,” Gameng, a College of Arts and Sciences junior, said. “Sometimes it would mean he would squeeze some of our budgets, sometimes it would mean he would pressure us to do projects we didn’t want to do and would discourage us from doing projects that were successful.”
Gameng said the e-board’s reaction to remote printing and RIAA events provides an example of the mismanagement.
“Adil wanted other things to do be done, but Chairperson Pasquale pushed on,” he said. “The e-board was frowning upon it, but they were very successful.”
Yunis did push for the blue light boxes, which Gameng said was a “very good thing” for campus.
“He was very successful in what he felt needed to be done,” he said.
“We chose not to really get worked up over internal matter because then we would not have been able focus on anything externally,” Yunis, a CAS senior, said.
Yunis said the e-board chose not to get involved in select causes. It did not take up the task of changing the Union Constitution because it did not want to get “bogged down” in a project that would lead to “a lot of bickering.”
Yunis said the lack of guidelines “has been restrictive” and there are “changes needed” in the constitution.
“It’s something that should be addressed, but should be done in a very careful manner,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to address the constitution at the very beginning of the year though, because that’s just going to set the tone of the entire year, that the Union focuses on everything internally.”
President-elect Matt Seidel has vowed to change the constitution during throughout the summer and into the fall semester.
As to the allegations that the current e-board has been underperforming, Yunis said it has “been doing a lot.” This year, Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore has been looking into extending BU Shuttle hours and creating a 24-hour study lounge. The Union is putting $4,500 toward extending wireless Internet access around campus. The Office of Auxiliary Services is looking into a proposal to use Convenience Points for taxis, he said.
In addition, the Union has been working on creating advertisement space for student groups at computer kiosks and on the BUS, Yunis said. The Academic Affairs Committee also finished its advising report, which was submitted to administrators recently, provided more electrical outlets in the George Sherman Union and proposed condom dispensers in dorms to the Office of Residence Life, Yunis said.
“It’s hard to advertise what the Union has done,” Yunis said. “That’s where we need to improve. We need to communicate with the student body.”
Union Vice President John Dallas Grant said most initiatives are not recognized as successful until the following year due to the nature of the organization.
“I think the Union was very successful in starting off a lot of projects,” Grant, a CAS junior, said. “The Union is a fairly cyclical organization. It’s hard to get things done in a year.”
Union Treasurer Josh Levine, a College of General Studies sophomore, said he will not be involved with the Union next year, but hopes the newly elected e-board will learn from this administration’s mistakes.
“Communication was definitely a problem with some members of the e-board,” he said. “Looking back, I wish we thought of ourselves more as a team instead of individuals in our positions.”
