Mark DiCristofaro once told this newspaper there are two political parties at Boston University: the Student Union and The Daily Free Press.

Unfortunately, anyone who has read this paper, and especially this page in the past few years, is likely to agree with the Union vice president.

But such a divide is not what is best for this campus. This page would welcome a proactive Union it can support. It wants a Union that does everything in its power to create the ideal university for students. This year’s Union was not this effective governing body.

That isn’t to say the Union has been entirely unsuccessful this year. For example, it established proportional representation so groups receive an appropriate amount of votes in the General Assembly.

The Union changed the focus of its meetings as well and reformatted them to be more meaningful. Committee reports are now completed outside of meetings, freeing up time to discuss important issues. And to talk about these issues, the group decided on a forum in which members can converse about the topics that are on students’ minds. Leaders have also made sure to bring in administrators to take part in relevant debates, too.

While the new format could eventually prove fruitful, the current Union did not properly use it this year. Instead of reaching out to members of the student body to really discover what was troubling them, Union members seemed to have brainstormed their own list of issues. This must be changed.

The new meeting format represents what is wrong with the current state of the Union. It has labored to lay the proper groundwork for the group’s procedures, but has been held back by all of its internal changes. It is important to amend the constitution and establish how to go about making those amendments, but when it is the biggest accomplishment of the year for a should-be advocacy group, that is a problem.

Students had some of their demands met this year — such as changes to the Guest Policy and the extension of wireless Internet to the BU Beach — but the Union can’t take much credit for these improvements. Students need to see tangible results come from the Union before they take interest in it.

The Union needs to better publicize its actions as well next year. Other student groups don’t struggle with this, so there is no excuse for the Union. The leaders must promote what good their group does. Just this year members have been involved with discussions with the MBTA, becoming one of the first student groups to accomplish this, but few students are aware of this success. The group’s public relations team must realize that The Daily Free Press is not the only way to spread Union news.

Before it does anything else next semester, the Union should establish its own communication network, such as a monthly newsletter. No matter how many great things it accomplishes, if students don’t know about them, they don’t mean much.

Several years of debate about the Union’s structure have finally put the group in a position to move forward. Progress must begin now.