The new Boston University Student Union executive board got an early start to the year last night by holding its first open house in its new office on the second floor of the Sargent Activities Center in an effort to increase interest and attendance at Union meetings this semester.
Union President Brooke Feldman said the e-board held an open house this year to get an earlier start with Union involvement, prior to the first general assembly meeting, which will take place Monday, Sept. 18, about two weeks earlier than the first Union meeting last year.
“We just didn’t think it was appropriate to just have a first meeting,” the School of Education junior said.
Union Treasurer Caroline Cahill said the open house was a useful introduction into Union affairs for freshmen.
“I don’t know if students would feel comfortable just walking into the first meeting,” she said, “especially if they think we were going to be talking about business.”
Feldman estimated about 60 to 80 freshmen came to the open house seeking information about the Union and other on-campus activities.
“We’ve generated a lot of interest in the cabinet positions and a lot of interest in the leadership conference,” she said. “We’ve also got a lot of interest in running for next year’s e-board.”
College of Arts and Sciences freshman Ramya Kumar said she came to the open house to find out more ways to get involved with the university.
“I spoke with someone who was in the Union … and he said to just jump right in and get involved,” she said. “Hopefully I can make a difference, especially with the new president here — there’s a lot of room for change and to make BU better.”
The e-board said the number of interested freshmen at the open house shows potential for increased involvement in this year’s Union. Cahill said at least 1,600 people signed up for the Union on five network computers set up at Splash!. She expects there to be about 100 people at Monday’s meeting. She said last year’s Union meetings only drew about 30 representatives.
Union Vice President Mark DiCristofaro said the Union is trying to bring in more representatives from the different Residence Hall Associations and college governments.
“The president, the dean of students and the [Student Activities Office] all sat down with us and we all thought it would be better for more people to be there and make sure [voting members] make the right decision,” the College of Communication junior said.
Increasing the number of representatives from each constituency would require an amendment to the Union’s constitution. As it stands now, each constituency only has one representative. DiCristofaro said the new model would base the number of representatives on enrollment numbers or the number of people in each constituency.
“For example, West Campus would have three representatives from their RHA instead of one,” he said. “Warren Towers would also have three.”
This would affect Article VI, Section Two of the Constitution regarding representatives, which states: “Each Residence Hall will send one representative to the General Assembly.”
Should the amendment pass, RHAs including South Campus would have three representatives, and Bay State Road and the Student Village would have two representatives.
The same model would also apply for college governments. Under the new model, CAS would have three representatives and COM and the College of General Studies would have two representatives.
DiCristofaro said he would propose the wording of the amendments at the first meeting next Monday, and the general assembly will vote on them at the following meeting. Although the amendment is not currently in effect, many of the college governments and RHAs have already asked for multiple candidates. DiCristofaro said if the amendments do not pass, the other representatives would remain in the Union without voting privileges.