There are two groups of students vying for next year’s Boston University Student Union Executive Board. One has been running for four months, and one just managed to pull itself together after the eligibility deadline was extended. One thinks the print quota overhaul has been reasonable, and one thinks it did not address student needs well enough. One has a name that rhymes with BU, and one uses the “U’ in the school’s abbreviation as an extension into the word “United.’
And while the upcoming election’s yin and yang cannot seem to agree on anything, they share a resounding similarity: Neither has any clue what concerns this university’s student body and neither has made any effort to understand. But bang-up job on the insignificant banter!
By the time a BU student has completed his or her freshman year, there are a few universal concerns each shares: The university is outrageously expensive and the administration is about as transparent as a cloudy puddle in addressing its own aims. Potential Union replacements arguing whether 12 cents or eight cents per printed page is more reasonable than the other is more than moot. Looking to make the BU Shuttle more reliable and fighting for more common space in dorm rooms are issues certainly worth some attention, but the candidates that hope to become the future of the group that is supposed to represent the whole student body seem to be operating under their own agenda. There are bigger fish to fry.
Most troubling is the idea that a continuation of calm and tepid (and useless) conversation with administrators is a surefire way to initiate change. If the past few years are any indication, being calm and reasonable is not the way to garner enough attention to get any good work done. Nothing has gotten done.
“They think the only way you can get something done within the administration is to start a protest, start a riot. That has not worked historically,” a vice presidential candidate said of his opposition.
Maybe this student has never heard of the massacre at Kent State. Maybe this student did not know that BU shut down 40 years ago in response to rioting students threatening to strike. Either way, it is terrifying to think that someone so naïve might soon be the voice of this student population. But then again, Union has proven time and again that it’s barely a voice at all.
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