Boston University Student Government heard updates from its executive board, held a presentation on Senate chair elections and confirmed a proxy for the Judicial Advisory Commission in a short meeting Monday night.
Earlier in the academic year, the executive board shared its goals under the umbrellas of community, health and professional development. Initiatives under these umbrellas included OneGala, the soon-to-launch Mental Health Blog and Build Your Network events.
In terms of community, the e-board is working with the College of Arts and Sciences StuGov’s Inter-Club Coalition on planning “Out of Office” — office hours when students can interact with leaders of campus organizations.
StuGov also looks to host OneGala — a virtual talent show event featuring students from across BU — as well as an Underrepresented Students Week at the start of April.
The Mental Health Blog is scheduled to be up the first week of March to provide resources for students.
College of Communication junior and StuGov’s Vice President of Internal Affairs Nyah Jordan also promoted “Self-Care Wednesday,” when StuGov will be offering free face masks Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the basement of the George Sherman Union — where the StuGov office is located.
In terms of professional development, the Build Your Network events last Fall doubled their expected attendance.
“Two hundred plus students attended total, which is great,” COM junior and President Oliver Pour said, “beating our original goal of about 100 students.”
The executive board is planning at least two more sessions to take place in March and April.
The meeting continued with CAS junior Diane Hwangpo’s confirmation as a proxy for the JAC, which communicates with other StuGov departments and maintains physical and digital archives.
Hwangpo, who will be proxying for Rep. Rebecca Hyatt this semester, said she was motivated to become a JAC proxy because of an interest in her high school’s judicial branch and a desire to try something new.
“I’m always just looking forward to new things and new experiences so that’s kind of one of the reasons why,” Hwangpo said, “I kind of jumped on that because it’s something that I’m not really familiar with.”
Hwangpo also noted the skills and perspectives she wanted to bring to the role upon her appointment.
“I’m hoping to bring fresh insight onto JAC,” she said, “and also work on helping the JAC establish themselves as a good source of reference for other branches, as well as helping with structuring.”
Hwangpo was confirmed as JAC proxy with 31 votes in the affirmative out of 39 senators present.
Senate Chair Vincent D’Amato, a senior in Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, shared information with StuGov about running for Senate chair. Senators can declare their intentions to the judicial commission from Monday until April 12, when StuGov will vote on the position.
On April 12 — the second to last Senate meeting — each candidate will have five minutes to speak, during which other candidates will not be allowed in the room. Candidates must receive a simple majority of 50 percent to be elected to Senate chair. If no candidate receives the qualifying votes, the top two candidates enter a runoff.
D’Amato said there would be no campaigning for the role until April 5.
Deputy Justice Christian Vanleer, a CAS senior, reiterated the importance of the campaign period and said StuGov members should participate in “community monitoring” to prevent campaigning outside of the period.
“If you find yourselves seeing promotional material, so on and so forth,” Vanleer said, “we just ask that you reach out to us at our judicial email, and we’ll be happy to have any necessary talks there.”
The meeting ended over an hour early.
Abbigale Shi, editorial page editor of The Daily Free Press, is a Student Government Environmental Affairs cabinet staffer. She was not involved in the editing of this article.
