Senators heard three proposals and an update from the Give Blood Ad-Hoc Committee in a Senate meeting Monday night.
Hafzat Akanni, SG president, presented a proposal from the College Governments President Council to create an amendment to the SG Constitution mandating the existence of a CGPC for each annual student government administration.
The CGPC, which consists of Akanni and the presidents of each individual colleges’ student government, has met once every two weeks throughout the 2019-2020 academic year to provide updates on student government activity across the colleges, as well as in SG.
Akanni said the CGPC hopes to mandate meetings between individual government leaders to promote community, accountability and uniformity of student government organizations on campus.
Hessann Farooqi, a sophomore senator in the College of Arts and Sciences, said he sees consistent communication across college student governments as crucial to the success of SG.
“I think it’s a really good idea because coordination across the different governments is really important to the work that we do here in [SG],” Farooqi said. “If we think of some really great idea, [we need] the support of all the different colleges to implement it.”
Yitong Liu, a sophomore senator in the College of Communication, presented his proposal for the Infectious Disease Prevention Act, which aims to provide hand sanitizers and informational flyers to students in light of the coronavirus outbreak and flu season.
Liu said in the meeting that the presence of coronavirus in Boston, as well as BU’s decision to cancel the Shanghai study abroad program, inspired the creation of the IDPA. He said to the senators that he wants to make sure SG provides practical and emotional support to the many international students whose families are impacted by the outbreak, or who have experienced racism and xenophobia surrounding the outbreak.
Senators voted to pass the original IDPA with a budget of $850. Several senators suggested elaborating on the initial proposal to include initiatives that focus more closely on supporting BU students impacted by the virus.
Shaina Evans, a sophomore senator in CAS, said she believes the initial IDPA proposal is a strong start to what she hopes will be a series of SG initiatives surrounding the coronavirus outbreak.
“Just because of time constraints, I think this is a good starting proposal, but I’m not at all anticipating or intending for this to be the last thing we do relating to the coronavirus,” Evans said. “I’m happy that this is a good place to start, but there’s a lot of work we have to do.”
Andrea Gomez, chief justice for SG and a junior in CAS, presented a proposal from the Senate Judicial Committee to change the name of the Executive Advisory Commission to the Judicial Advisory Commission. The EAC is a committee within the judicial branch that collects and coordinates archives from within student government, and provides insight on current Senate issues while using past proceedings as precedent.
Gomez said the name change is intended to signify that, although the EAC serves all of SG, it is an organization within the judicial branch. Gomez also said to Senators that the Judicial Branch hopes the EAC will become more deeply involved with the judicial side of SG, focusing on archives related to past judicial processes and voting records.
Jonmichael Aracena, a junior in CAS, said he doesn’t think the name change should occur until the function of the EAC matches the judicial focus implied with the new name.
“I think that they shouldn’t decide on a name change before deciding on structural changes because as of right now, the judicial name change doesn’t make sense for the roles currently associated with that position,” Aracena said. “If they do want to restructure it so it does accurately fit that, then I’m all for it. But until I see those changes, I don’t think they should change the name.”
The Give BAC Act of 2020 Ad-Hoc Committee, led by Aditya Jain, a junior senator in the College of Engineering, presented updates to Senate regarding plans for a blood donation drive in partnership with Massachusetts General Hospital on campus.
The committee announced they will either hold the drive in the parking lot near the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation, or the parking lot near Marsh Plaza. The committee also requested funding of $467 for t-shirts and wristbands to be given to students who choose to donate blood.
Senate voted to approve the committee’s funding request for the blood drive.
