Union passes smoking, cage-free eggs proposals at final meeting

Student Union passed a smoking campaign proposal designed to increase education about smoking and its effects, focusing on courtesy to other students, in a meeting Monday night.

“This campaign is directed to smokers who might read these signs and think, ‘Hey, I do that. I should stop because that’s annoying to those around me,’” said Jack Moriarty, chair of the advocacy committee and a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences.

“The three points of the campaign are courtesy, cost and cessation,” Moriarty said. “Courtesy is definitely the main focus, though, the most salient idea and most central to what we’re looking for.”

The outline of the courtesy campaign aims to raise awareness about the economic cost of smoking, to promote Student Health Services’ resources for smokers and to “alert smokers to behaviors that bother other students,” according to the proposal.

By working with advertising and marketing clubs, Union is in the process of designing advertisements for high-traffic areas, such as the George Sherman Union, Mugar Memorial Library and Warren Towers.

After the smoking campaign passed unanimously, senator Blyss Buitrago, a junior in CAS, proposed and successfully garnered an adoption of a “cage-free only” policy for BU dining halls.

Representing the BU Vegetarian Society, Buitrago outlined the ethical, environmental and health reasons for requiring dining halls to use cage-free eggs as opposed to the current usage of battery cage eggs.

“Battery cage eggs are currently banned in Europe and two-thirds of colleges in the U.S, have banned it also,” Buitrago said. “We’re urging dining services to go 100 percent cage free.”

“Battery cage eggs have a huge risk of getting salmonella. Cage free – it is a known fact – has a much less risk,” Buitrago added. “It’s better for the environment, and for hens. In the battery cage system, they live in an area the size of a piece of paper. This would return the earth into how it’s meant to be.”

With both of these proposals passed within the first half hour, attendees at the Union meeting began two heated discussions about potential changes to the constitution.

One would add a “parliament” in addition to the senate and the other would move Union executive board elections to November. After many points of order, a few yelling matches and a couple thuds of the gavel, neither issue was settled.

CAS sophomore Luke Rebecchi, who is not a Union member but attended the meeting, presented a proposal that would add a parliament for the Union to balance the current senate. The parliament would be comprised of a representative from each student group on campus with an estimated size of 480 students.

“Senators, how much more efficiently and effectively would you be able to operate if the people you want to talk to are working with you?” Rebecchi asked.

“In Union, students are categorized by housing and college, but what makes BU BU is not housing or college governments, it’s what we do, our clubs and activities. It’s what we spend so much time doing,” he said.

Sean Gunning, a CAS freshman, was one of many to express concerns about the proposal.

“The more we bump [the number of representatives] up, the less voices are heard. There is no reason to cram that many people in a room. It lessens the voice and impact representatives may have and it can complicate a vote,” Gunning said.

The proposal, with such a drastic change to the constitution, was passed on to an ad hoc committee comprised of the executive board, senators and any other interested students.

The election time change, presented at the last Union meeting, was offered an opportunity for a vote, but senators passed on that chance, instead waiting until after winter break. This proposal would move elections from April to November in an attempt to maintain a continuity of ideas between e-boards, senators said.

“If an e-board comes through with all these initiatives on their agenda, they really shouldn’t be because that’s not what it’s about,” said School of Management sophomore Alex Staikos, Union vice president. “With this proposal, we want to give more power back to senators.”

“It would make sure we’re really working on what senators want to work on. It’s meant to empower senators and create leaders,” Staikos said.