Chancellor John Silber will participate in a question-and-answer session open to the general public tonight at 7 p.m. in room 105 of the School of Management.
“This night is really important because [students] see Silber as a mysterious character,” Senate Chairman Joel Fajardo said. “This really does benefit Dr. Silber and the students as a whole.”
Fajardo said the event would include an introduction of Silber, followed by 10 to 15 minutes of remarks from Silber. The chancellor will then take questions that have been pre-screened and sorted for the remainder of the two-hour event. Students who wish to speak must arrive early, according to Fajardo.
“If you want to be on the speaker list, you need to be there at 6:30,” he said.
The questions will be sorted into categories, which will assure that issues go together and no questions are repeated, Fajardo added. He said no question would be censored if it pertains to Boston University.
“Any question that is relevant to the school will be permitted to ask,” Fajardo said. “Unless the questions are outright vulgar.”
Fajardo said he does not believe students will try to ask any offensive or inappropriate questions.
Students who have had their questions pre-approved will be called up in groups of five or 10 to ask their questions to Silber. The event will be taped by the chancellor’s office in order to maintain a history of the event in the archives.
SMG room 105 can only hold approximately 400 students when filled to capacity, and there are currently no plans to fit more students should more than 400 attend.
“I brought [the problem] up with several people,” Fajardo said. “At this point if the room fills to capacity, then those [already there] will be the only students to see Silber speak.”
He added that if this forum was a success then he would look into having Silber speak again next semester.
Seats are even more limited for the general population due to the fact that members of the Senate, the Executive Board of the Student Union, and some of the college presidents already have reserved seats for the event.
The forum has been in the planning since late October, according to Fajardo. Bringing speakers to the Union was the platform Fajardo said he ran on last year, and while this will not be an official Senate meeting, they will be the students hosting and moderating the event.
Fajardo said he had to work around Silber’s schedule to plan this event, noting how conflicts forced the event to be held on a non-meeting night. Instead of asking him to speak to the Senate, he proposed speaking to the student body at-large instead.
“We ended up having to schedule it on the only day he could really do it,” he said.
Besides Fajardo’s involvement in having Silber address the students, the senators have helped in getting the word out to the student body as well as preparing for tonight.
Fajardo said senators have helped write invitations, as well as put announcements in the College of Communication and College of Arts and Sciences newsletters. They also worked on getting Catering on the Charles to supply snacks.
At the forum, the Senate will be handing out a letter to students describing Senate activities and surveys which ask them questions regarding Union activity this semester as well as what they think are important issues on campus.
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