The Boston University Student Government heard a final address from the 2024-2025 StuGov president, endorsed a preventative care organization and accepted a bill to adjust the BU Community Service Fee during its Monday night meeting.
Outgoing Student Body President Akwasi Antwi opened the meeting by sharing information about the Spring Concert Saturday, where artist Asake will be performing.
Antwi also welcomed newly elected 2025-2026 Student Body President Matthew Feliciano, who will be delivering the president’s addresses at meetings for the rest of the school year.
StuGov also heard a presentation from BU Prevent, a new student organization centered around preventative care for BU students. BU Prevent President Hassan Vora and Vice President Esha Patel addressed the members at the meeting.
“Our core mission is to serve the BU student community with preventative care techniques,” Vora said. “This is something separate from treating disease. This is the proactive steps that we want to take in order to prevent disease in the first place.”
BU Prevent presented findings from a survey it conducted concerning the health of college students, from a sample of 85 undergrad students.
When asked if they have a primary care physician in their college town, 82.1% of students said no, Patel said. When asked when their last routine medical appointment was, 46% said they hadn’t had one in more than a year.
Vora and Patel said BU Prevent also aims to improve alcohol training programs and dining hall food options.
StuGov approved Senate Resolution 37, endorsing BU Prevent.
Additionally, StuGov approved Senate Resolution 36, a bill regarding BU’s Community Service Fee.
The CSF is an annual fee charged to all full-time undergraduate students. The fee is currently $73 and gets distributed to stakeholders, including StuGov, the Allocations Board, college governments, residence halls and club sports.
The bill will adjust the cost of the CSF and determine potential terms of rejection for the bill when it goes to BU administration. The bill also proposes changing the name to “Student Events Fee.”
“It’s currently called the Community Service Fee, but it has nothing to do with community service,” said Rafaele DiMaggio, a presenter for the bill and member of the Senate Finance Committee.
The bill will also decrease the amount of funding allocated to college governments and residence halls, while increasing the amount of funding allocated to campus-wide events, club sports and the Allocations Board.
StuGov expects to see a 20% decrease in funding from the CSF for the next fiscal year, DiMaggio said.
“During COVID, none of [the CSF] was spent, because all club activities were canceled for the entire year, everything was basically canceled, so BU kind of piled that money up and added it back to the CSF over the years,” DiMaggio said. “That big pile is now drained.”
Senator Sean Sun said the Senate Finance Committee is prepared for the funding loss.
“Across the board, we’re gonna have to think about how we hold events and how we use our money in a different way,” Sun said. “We have to be more stingy with it. We have to be more careful with how we spend things.”
