Student Union senators took their first meeting of the semester last night to allocate $400 for the possible appearance of a King family member during a two-day celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday next week, organized by the Boston University Green Party.
The non-politically affiliated event will include a rally in the George Sherman Union Ballroom on Jan. 22 to celebrate the birthday of the BU Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumnus, according to BU Green Party president Karlo Silbiger.
The main focus of the event will be ‘to use [Martin Luther King Jr.’s] goals and his ideas as a way of activating and encouraging further action on those goals,’ Silbiger said.
Silbiger said he is hoping to have either King’s wife or sister address the rally’s attendants, pending a response from the King center in Atlanta.
If one of King’s relatives agrees to attend the event, the $400 allocated by the Senate will be used for their travel expenses. The group will return the money if no King relatives are able to come.
The Senate has $9,020 left to allocate for the year, not including the $400 deduction for last night’s allocation, according to Union Vice President of Financial Affairs Mike Bodek.
President Ethan Clay and Executive Vice-President Joe Rollin also both expressed their wishes for the Union to become a cohesive body in separate Senate addresses.
Pointing out ‘rifts’ between the Senate and the E-Board, Rollin and Clay both said they hope that this semester will prove to be one of unification and cohesion between the two major powers within the Union.
‘Get involved with each other and show your camaraderie,’ said Rollin.
Two new representatives from the School of Hospitality Administration were also sworn in at last night’s meeting.
Ernie Clarke and Leia Yoon, both freshmen in the School of Hospitality Administration, were inducted into the Senate. They are replacing two senators from last semester: one who graduated early and one who resigned to participate in a study-abroad program.
According to a statement made by SHA’s previous senators at the final meeting of last semester, the new inductees have attended several of the previous Senate meetings and are aware of the issues they are facing in their new positions.
Despite the new faces, several Senate seats remain open, including those for Hamilton House and the Student Residences at 10 Buick Street. Union officials said Student Union Election Commissioners are in the process of finding and presenting candidates to the Senate for approval.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
