Boston University students voiced goals for and concerns about tuition transparency, gender-neutral facilities and other campus initiatives at Student Government’s Town Hall Meeting Monday night.
About 20 students attended the meeting to inform SG of what they would like to see accomplished in the fall semester, including an end to tuition hikes and expand plans for gender-neutral housing.
“I think it’s really important that we try to stop the tuition hikes, but in a way that [we avoid] freezing tuition for BU administration to go and fire workers and say it’s students’ fault,” said KC Mackey, a College of Arts and Sciences senior.
SG said it is possible for there to be student input on tuition and financial matters.
“We want to talk about adding student input from Student Government on how tuition is decided for the year,” said Executive Vice President Aditya Rudra, a School of Management junior. “There are universities in the U.S. at which the budgets for the year go forward not just by the board of trustees, but also by their student government.”
Rudra said that when the current SG executive board ran for election in the spring, they ran on an ideal that any student working a full-time job should be able to pay tuition.
“What that means is that anyone at any level of this society, this economic playing field, would be able to afford a BU tuition,” he said. “We’re saying that this education is not purely restricted for those among the upper echelons of society.”
Rudra later clarified this was an ideal and not a realistic short-term goal.
Mackey said successful tuition freezes in Toronto and Montreal should serve as examples.
Some students said transparency is important for matters involving tuition.
“Would an average student at least be able to see what [SG] is working on, or would that be restricted to Student Government officials?” said College of Engineering sophomore John Griese.
Rudra said SG wants to make financial documents more easily accessible to people from a centralized online location.
“Another thing we want to work on is making the financial data that is out there available and understood easily,” Rudra said. “For them to understand that information would be empowering for us.”
Students said they would like to see certain BU departments centralized such as financial aid and the registrar’s office as dealing with them on important matters can be confusing.
“It is kind of labyrinthine the way you don’t know whether you need this [form] or that,” Griese said.
Some students said they would like to see medical amenities on campus based to remove fear of persecution for drug or alcohol abuse.
“If you’re trying to save a life, you should not have any fear for being punished for any illegal drugs or underage drinking involved,” Mackey said.
SG said they have made progress with gender-neutral housing and the BU administration is discussing it with the trustees, but some students requested gender-neutral services beyond housing.
“I’m really glad that gender-neutral housing is something that is starting to be taken forward, but there are a lot of other gendered things on campus that do need work,” said Julien Jacquelin, a CAS sophomore.
Jacquelin said there are no gender-neutral bathrooms easily accessible on campus, which causes problems for students that do not fall within the gender binary. She also said Student Health Services does not consider gender variance urgently enough or provide gender therapy.
“That is something that should be taken care of at BU because it does affect your academic life very heavily,” Jacquelin said.
Students said they would like to see their voices heard more and be empowered as a student body, as they feel they have too little power compared to administration.
“We need to build student power,” Mackey said. “We shouldn’t be frustrated with these issues when the administration are making six-figure salaries and they are the ones that have the final say in all these decisions.”
SG President Dexter McCoy, a College of Communication junior, said he was pleased with the turnout for the meeting.
“I think that tonight went very well,” he said. “Moving forward, hopefully we’ll see those people who were passionate about certain issues take them up and build a coalition for whatever their issues are.”
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