SG slates address student advocacy, involvement in election debate

The three slates running for the 2016-17 Boston University Student Government Executive Board met for a debate Thursday evening and explained their initiatives to address advocacy on campus and increase student involvement.

Approximately 60 students attended the debate hosted and organized by the Student Elections Commission in the School of Education. Sekar Krisnauli and Mina Corpuz, current and former campus editors of The Daily Free Press, respectively, moderated the debate as the slates BU Recharged, Clean Slate and NewBU responded to their questions and questions from the audience.

Each slate was asked to explain how they would improve student involvement with SG, given only approximately 2,700 undergraduate students voted last year in the E-board election, whereas 3,500 students voted the previous year.

BU Recharged Presidential candidate Louis Vitti responded saying students identify strongly with groups they are a part of, so his slate’s platform hopes to include members from most on-campus student groups in SG.

“The reason students aren’t voting is because they don’t feel like they have a place in student government, so it doesn’t matter to them,” Vitti, a junior in the Questrom School of Business, argued. “It’s all about bringing people in and making them feel like they have a place here in SG.”

Jacob Brewer, a presidential candidate from Clean Slate, argued that by mobilizing students’ power and utilizing the momentum of the Constitutional Reform Committee’s attempt to restructure SG, students will be more interested in SG.

“If we give power and give students a voice at this university, then the complacency will end,” said Brewer, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. “If we start tackling the issues that people really care about, more people will get involved.”

NewBU’s candidate for Vice President of Finance Atid Malka responded and said students would feel more included with SG if E-board members have diverse backgrounds.

“I am the only freshman running for E-board this year,” said Malka, a freshman in the College of Engineering. “We are looking to involve many different people on campus, and we can do that because we have different grades and majors within our slate.”

The slates also highlighted plans to address issues similar to controversies that came up in SG over the last few months, such as last semester’s impeachment of two E-Board members.

BU Recharged’s VP of Finance candidate Justin Flynn said students need to learn from last semester and learn to respect each other despite the differences.

“We should all be here to support each other rather than tear each other down,” said Flynn, a junior in Questrom. “That’s something we all know inherently, but that’s not always expressed in our actions, and that’s the message we would bring if [BU Recharged] is elected to E-board.”

Clean Slate’s VP of Finance candidate Hanaan Yazdi said many students didn’t know about the impeachment trial last semester, so one of the slate’s priorities would be to improve transparency and outreach to the student body.

Malka said the name of his slate embodies their platform toward handling controversies that arise surrounding SG. Malka said “NewBU” means they are starting a new semester in hopes of changing the past attitudes students have felt for SG.

Members of the slate also responded to a question submitted from a user on Twitter that asked if BU

Students for Justice in Palestine should receive a seat in the Senate. The slates varied in their responses.

Flynn said the way in which student groups receive Senate seats can change from its current protocol, depending on whether students would like to keep the current Senate structure in place.

Yazdi said SJP would receive a Senate seat, but she wishes to implement “at large” seats on Senate, for which students from different groups can compete.

“I don’t think SJP should have a seat, but I don’t think other student groups should have seats either,” Yazdi said. “Instead, [we can] replace these with positions people could run for, which could promote cross-plug coalitions and dialogue between groups.”

The NewBU Presidential candidate and an ENG sophomore Nadia Asif said that as long as the current constitution is in place, her slate would keep the current Senate structure as it is.

Following the debate, some members from each slate said they felt confident in their own platforms after listening to what other slates had to say.

Laura Davis, the BU Recharged candidate for Executive VP, said she believed in her slate’s ability to make realistic goals and plans for the student body.

“[Our ideas] are concrete ideas, not just lofty goals,” Davis, a sophomore in the College of Communication, explained. “We have plans of how we are going to execute things, and I wasn’t hearing that from other slates. We are also flexible with what students really want, and we have room to bring it to them.”

Yazdi, a sophomore in CAS, said the desire for structural change at BU sets her slate apart from the other two slates. She said her slate would change the system to get many more students involved in SG.

“Yes, these smaller policies and issues [discussed at the debate] are important, but what has the most far-reaching effect is structural change and getting students involved with SG,” Yazdi argued. “We don’t know what small changes students want without hearing their voice to begin with.”

Petar Ojdrovic, the NewBU candidate for Executive VP, said the difference between NewBU and the other slates is that his slate has experience working pragmatically.

“It’s very easy to make a broad, strong statement, but that doesn’t mean anything unless you can back it up with a concise and workable action plan,” said Ojdrovic, a sophomore in ENG. “It is [NewBU’s] responsibility to go to the student body and explain to them how we plan on executing on these very meaningful and impactful initiatives.”

Several attendees voiced their opinions after the debate about the various slates and compared each slate’s policies.

Hellen Giang, a junior in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, said that although she did not know much about SG and the slates, she was surprised to see how formal and heated the debate became.

“[The debate] seemed to be very tense,” Giang said. “Clean Slate really stood out to me because they had a very anti-establishment vibe, which I was surprised and pleased to see.”

Jeremy Singer, a junior in Questrom, said he likes the way NewBU handled questions about reform and they way the slate answered them with pragmatic solutions.

“I’m a practical guy,” Singer said. “Personally, NewBU is really just trying to do what would be possible. They have the experience. It seems three of them have Senate experience, as to knowing what would be possible … [Clean Slate] sounds extremely appealing to those trying to affect serious change. Though, knowing from experience, their ideas just don’t fall on the map.”

A previous version of this story mentioned BU Recharged Presidential Candidate Louis Vitti as a sophomore in the Questrom School of Business instead of a junior. This correction is reflected in the story above.