The Boston University Student Election Commission held a meet and greet on Monday afternoon for slates running for Student Government Executive Board at the George Sherman Union Link.
The meet and greet is a part of an annual tradition for each SG election cycle.
Two slates, B-trU and Your BU, are running this year. Members from both slates introduced themselves to students and discussed each slate’s goals, hoping to gain students’ votes.
SEC co-chair Ramya Ravindrababu, who helped organize the meet and greet, said she hopes students will take advantage of opportunities to meet with slate members.
“It’s really just us giving a platform for the slates to go and reach students and to help them out in any way we can,” she said.
SEC helped reserve the space and chairs at the corner of the GSU in addition to providing cookies and other sweets.
“I hope that this and the [planned] voting booths [during the voting period] will really increase voter turnout,” Ravindrababu said.
The B-trU slate includes Hector Meneses for executive president, Elie Dwek for executive vice president, Michelle Megala for vice president of financial affairs and Vaishnavi Kothapalli for vice president of internal affairs.
B-trU is centered on four main principles — student engagement, diversity and inclusivity, campus improvements and transparency, said Dwek, a Hillel senator.
“For transparency, we want there to a clear barricade between Student Government and BU,” College of General Studies senator Kothapalli said. “We also want to make Boston University a place where everyone feels welcome.”
The B-trU slate is composed of four sophomores from different schools and religious groups across campus, Dwek said.
“We have a lot of connections on campus to more of the minorities on campus, so I feel like we’ll be able to get in touch with them and connect with them better,” Kothapalli added.
The Your BU slate includes current SG Executive Vice President SaraAnn Kurkul for president, Piergiacomo Cacciamani for executive vice president, Bernie Lai for vice president of financial affairs and Eva Jungreis for vice president of internal affairs.
This slate is focused on three core values, including community, sustainability and transparency, said Cacciamani, a College of Engineering senator.
Your BU hopes to introduce a Multicultural Affairs Committee, help transfer students with their academic credits and ensure student clubs’ voices are heard, Cacciamani said.
“At the moment, [SG doesn’t] have any platform for clubs,” he said. “The clubs can’t really advocate their voices in the Senate.”
Cacciamani said students should vote for Your BU because its policies are practical and reliable.
“Our main goal is to get students more involved,” he said. “We want to make Your BU possible.”
Several students who talked to slate members at the meet and greet said they appreciated having an opportunity to listen to the slates’ platforms.
Fardowsa Abdulle, a sophomore in ENG, said she supports the B-trU slate and its platform.
“I like the part about being transparent because I feel like a lot of the times students don’t know what’s happening in student government,” Abdulle said.
William Pan, a ENG sophomore, also said he supports the B-trU slate because of its support for student groups, specifically engineering clubs.
“Engineering lost funding because of some [the] policy,” Pan said. “We can start by fixing that.”
Mary Cao, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she thinks it’s important for candidates to reach out to constituents.
“I think in any election, you need to be interacting with potential voters,” Cao said.
Cao said she hopes to see SG interacting more with the student body in the future.
“I want to see more transparency,” she said. “A lot of students don’t know much about it so I think we want to see concrete results.”
