Cotter: focus primarily on student issues

Third in a series of stories profiling this year’s Student Union presidential candidates.

Student Union Presidential candidate Eric Cotter plans to continue pushing current Union initiatives to relax the Guest Policy and bring cable to campus if he is elected next week, he said in an interview Tuesday night.

“Guest Policy is definitely a big issue, especially with the new administration. People are eager to see if anything can change,” Cotter said. “Right now I think I’m going to be pushing for what has been suggested, with each dorm voting on their own guest policy.”

Cotter, a College of Arts and Sciences sophomore, said he believes the Guest Policy must be more flexible in allowing for students to have unexpected visitors and make guest forms available online to lessen paperwork.

“The Guest Policy should be a little more flexible with being able to accommodate students that can’t necessarily plan ahead in certain situations, such as being able to have a friend call up and say, ‘hey, can I visit you this weekend,’ and you not have to explain, ‘well, you didn’t let me know Thursday night so I can’t let you stay,'” he said.

Cotter said bringing cable to campus would be a good way to keep students informed about world events and provide accessible updates about Boston University.

While Cotter said he believes the new Student Union structure will give the Union more power, the “kinks” have yet to be worked out. The construction of the new constitution, he said, should be influenced by past constitutions and experiences with those documents.

“I want to play as big of a role as I can play in this restructuring,” he said. “Obviously using the old one as a model and seeing how it went wrong or what was good about it and just work off of that, to see how much we can revamp.”

While Cotter was not completely certain what would be included in the new constitution, he said he would be open to suggestions.

Cotter cited a lack of communication as one of the major problems facing the university and said he believes students need a stronger sense of community.

“I hope that certain things like the construction of the Harry Agganis Arena will help bolster school spirit,” he said. “It will unite BU behind our sports teams, and then from there, we can work on community activities.”

Cotter said communication between administrators and students could be improved by the creation of message boards on which students could post questions or concerns to be answered by administrators.

“The main force behind what I hope to do is have more communication between everybody, and so the more input the better,” he said. “The main way [I] hope to do something like this is by putting a lot more stuff online … Being able to do something online would be a lot more easier because everybody has access on campus to the internet. Everybody checks it everyday so that is a very good way to get in touch with everyone and allow for the easy flow of communication both ways.”

If elected president, Cotter said he would hope to keep an open dialogue with administrators.

“I plan on having as easy a relationship as possible,” Cotter said. “I’d like to be able to meet them weekly or however often … in order to get certain issues settled.”

Cotter said he also hopes to maintain strong communication with the Student Union Assembly. The Executive Board and representatives should have a balanced say on issues brought before the Union and should work closely together to complete initiatives, he said.

While Cotter said he has no previous experience with student government at BU, he could bring in a wide variety of views.

“I plan on just setting my foot down and trying to make sure to get things done,” Cotter said. “I can bring new breath to the Union.”

While each candidate will be elected individually, Cotter said he entered the presidential race in part because of prodding from other members of his unofficial slate “PSYCHOTIC,” which includes three other candidates.