The Boston University Student Government Senate passed a proxy amendment, discussed the future of arts at BU and pushed for community-based uses of StuGov funds at their fourth meeting this school year Monday night.
Harvey Young, dean of the College of Fine Arts, presented a series of upcoming initiatives for the art department.
He discussed two task groups formed under BU President Melissa Gilliam — an advisory group and a working group composed of alumni, staff and students. These task groups proposed more than 100 recommendations for her goal of making the campus more “art-rich.”
The two groups’ leading recommendations include embedding arts in the university’s revamped first-year student orientations, allowing first-year students to have “meaningful arts experiences.” The second is the establishment of an Office of the Arts, which was created by rebranding the BU Arts Initiative.
For any major construction project that costs BU more than $10 million, 1% of that cost will be allocated to arts programming, Young said.
Longer term ambitions include a 1500-seat Center for the Arts and new gallery spaces in the works onto the second floor of the George Sherman Union and on BU’s Medical Campus.
The Wheelock Family Theater recently partnered with the City of Boston for “Boston Family Days,” a program that gives students and their families free access to the City’s cultural institutions, Young said.
He also encouraged students to visit other CFA art installations and performances, like jazz ensemble concerts, which are free for students.
The Senate passed a proxy amendment to the current bylaws, stating that one senator cannot proxy vote — which is when a present senator votes in place of an absent senator — for more than one senator at a time.
StuGov Senator Abby Garrettson said the proxy rule amendment was a way to “clean up” Senate bylaws.
“Especially being students, [the amendment allows us] to be able to work with and depend on each other. It helps to lead to more communication,” she said.
Previously, the amendment was an “unspoken rule” followed by the Senate unofficially before the passing of this reform. It was put into motion to hold senators accountable and make the amendment official.
Senate Chair Sean Sutton presented StuGov’s $3,560.99 in unused allocated funds and urged senators to propose bills for the benefit of the entire student body — like his initiatives that replaced the Starbucks coffee machines in Marciano Dining Hall with a more locally sourced brewery.
“These were proposed to get people thinking,” Sutton said.