Monday marked the final meeting of the semester for Boston University’s Student Union. With the semester winding down, Union Vice President Dan Ellis, a College of Arts and Sciences senior, sat down with The Daily Free Press to reflect about the semester and Union’s future.
Semester in Review
From their efforts to get BU students voting through TurboVote to creating a “Suite of Services,” Ellis said Union accomplished many of the goals it set at the beginning of the year.
Union used TurboVote to help make voting in local and national elections as easy as ordering from the online movie service Netflix, Union representatives told The Free Press in September.
Through the organization, Union registered about 600 students to vote, which Ellis called a “good turnout.”
“Oddly enough the simplest solution was providing students with a stamp,” he said.
However, Ellis said because it was a pilot program, there were still some problems.
“There were issues Union had to deal with but it’s good because it allowed us to get rid of kinks,” he said.
Another big change Union implemented was its addition of open office hours.
The office, located in the George Sherman Union, is now open from usually 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Ellis said.
“Some of the senators we’ve had trouble getting them to do their office hours,” he said. “But for the most part it’s been OK.”
Union also worked on internal structuring, such as re-working its Constitution “to have continuity between years,” he said.
On Monday, Union passed a proposal presented by Ellis, which called for the establishment of a Student Union Library.
“It’s an idea I’ve had for a while,” Ellis said at the meeting. “We’d have professional books and we could work together. . .There would be a few books on doing presentations, public speaking, graphic design, public relations and marketing.”
“Suite of Services”
Union recently launched its “Suite of Services,” four different services designed with BU students in mind.
One of their plans consists of “TextSWAP,” which essentially serves as a textbook exchange for students.
“There’s a one-way match system which tells you what students have and what you need,” Ellis said. “[Or] a two-way match – if someone is taking courses you’re about to take and you’re taking their course, you guys can just swap books directly.”
Also a part of the “Suite of Services” is Union’s BU Shuttle tracker.
Students can use their cell phones to text 4-FIND-BU-BUS and find out where the BUS is and the time of departure from West Campus.
“It’s an automated system it calculates it and responds to you within five-10 seconds,” Ellis said.
Ellis said Union is also looking into adding more features such as having students be able to text specific requests.
Union also created an app titled “What’s Open Now?” which provides students with information on opening and closing hours of on-campus locations such as libraries and study lounges.
Staff adds the hours manually, Ellis said.
“[Getting] closing times integrated into the app was kind of the key thing,” he said. “So you can say ‘we’re going to go right now, what’s open?’”
Finally, Union created a blog, which it plans on updating regularly, Ellis said.
Spring Fever
Looking ahead, Ellis said Union plans on getting ready for the elections and going further with its goals.
“We’re moving toward [accomplishing all goals] but there is still a lot of work to do,” he said.