I respectfully disagree with the opinion that our Student Union is “just one of hundreds of clubs at BU with about as much power as the next.”
Since my tenure as Residence Life Committee Chairman, I have seen members like City Affairs Director James Boggie, Advocacy Chairwoman Amy Mahler, and Presidents James Sappenfield and Arthur Emma volunteer hundreds of hours of their time in benefiting our community-at-large. This year alone, our team successfully lobbied for GPS tracking of the BUS, organized the largest celebration of freshmen spirit in recent memory, met with the MBTA about the timeliness of the 57 Bus, eased city voting requirements for students, and created a FitRec course focusing on women’s safety. Vice President Dan Ellis has worked tirelessly in starting the BUUnion.org website from scratch, implementing a textbook trade program and working with the Senate in drafting a fairer constitution. We are busy students as well, and negotiating with dozens of administrators, politicians, and other campus leaders who may not share our vision of progress unfortunately takes time.
Our schedule may appear “redundant” to some, but it is a necessary aspect of collaboration. Deans and Trustees measure their success over decades, while a new Union officer has less than four years to initiate plans and work with our successors in guaranteeing them. For example, our committee’s work in creating an independent yet effective Student Election Commission took a year and a half and two administrations to accomplish. President Emma was the former Off-Campus Housing Chairman, and though he is pushing for medical amnesty and 24-hour libraries today I can assure you that he has not forgotten his promise to our off-campus friends in expanding BUS services tomorrow.
It is true that Union must streamline its efforts in order to more quickly affect change. I hope that the new Judicial Commission will fulfill this mission by assisting our members in utilizing all of the privileges afforded to us by the community, and by keeping a concise record of our actions for future administrations. Progress is an expensive commodity in terms of time and resources, but you can be confident that the student leaders of Union will help to foster the BU experience as faithfully and efficiently as possible.
Jared Kleiman, Student Union Judicial Coordinator, CAS 2012
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