The Boston University Student Government Senate unanimously passed a resolution Monday to begin a temporary committee to deal with and prevent sexual assault on campus.
SG Chief of Staff Pablo Das will lead the committee, which will consist of eight to 12 other students from different clubs and organizations around campus.
“[The committee] will primarily brainstorm different ways we can get this out to the student body, different ways we can engage the student body and different ways we can work with the administration to bring [sexual assault and prevention] to the forefront of Student Government and the student body,” said Das, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore was also at the meeting and encouraged the Senate to pass the resolution.
“There are a lot of messages out there that say, ‘If you do something to these women, like you rape them, you assault them, you do other things to them, that there will be little repercussions in society for you,’” he said. “We have to resist that, and I am here to tell you that at this university, we will resist that.”
Potential programs to prevent sexual assault include a mandatory program similar to AlcoholEdu called Haven and a competition between BU and Boston College to see which school could gain more signatures on an “It’s on Us” petition, which was launched by U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration in September, Das said.
Elmore emphasized the importance of sexual misconduct policies relating back to Title IX, which deals with harassment and discrimination so students can participate in the education environment without regard to their sex.
“We’ve tried to make sure that we’ve got an independent Title IX coordinator here at the university,” he said. “We want to make sure everybody knows who they are and that there are certain responsibilities that they have for reporting this information, and we want to make sure that we’ve got a mandatory reporter regime so that people understand that on our sites.
SG President Richa Kaul said sexual assault is an important issue to focus on regardless of the urgency from the administration and whether it is in national news.
“It’s a time when college campuses, as well as society as a whole, are very perceptive to it [sexual assault], and what we want to do is really leverage that moment to bring it to campus in a big way,” said Kaul, a dual-degree junior in CAS and the School of Management.
Elmore mentioned the dangers of some off-campus housing, including the different safety environment and alcohol abuse in social situations. Student Government’s Off-Campus Council will convene for the first time Friday.
Kaul said the Council aims to send representatives to regional meetings at different areas around campus and to engage off-campus students with events such as a “Know Your Rights” campaign to inform students of their rights as tenants.
In other SG business, allocations requested for finals week care packages, writing tutors and TurboVote were passed. Finals week care packages, which passed unanimously by the Senate, will include food and studying tools for students and received $1,300 for about 500 packages during finals week. Senate unanimously granted $240 to provide six writing tutors at Warren Towers and West Campus dormitories during study period from Dec. 8 to 10. The Senate passed with one abstention, to pay TurboVote, an online voter engagement service, $500 to encourage more students to vote.
Senate Chairman Tyler Fields said he left the meeting feeling accomplished after passing multiple initiatives and programs.
“It is really great to see the administration is truly taking it seriously and that we are seeing some real changes,” said Fields, a dual-degree junior in CAS and SMG.
Executive Vice President Joe Ferme, a senior in CAS, said based on how the meeting ran, he has confidence in SG to achieve more for students.
“Some good things for the students are on the way,” he said. “Although it was long, it was successful. We passed three really great initiatives [and] made a new committee to really work on a good thing that administration wants to partner with us.”
UPDATE: An updated version of this article includes more information about Title IX and general cabinet updates from Student Government.
