Boston University’s Student Union hosted a panel dedicated to ‘opening up a channel between city officials and students’ Thursday to an audience of only six students in an attempt to involve the student body with its surroundings beyond Commonwealth Avenue, Union President Matt Seidel said.
‘The Union should function not just as a government, but as an advocacy group,’ Seidel said.’ ‘
The panel was part of the Union’s larger goal to unite the efforts of students, city officials and different clubs on campus with similar goals, Seidel said.
Assistant to the Dean of Students, Katherine Hasenauer, mediated the discussion and presented questions to city officials about how students could have a broader impact on their communities and the importance of being involved.
‘Being a student at Boston University and living in Boston are not mutually exclusive,’ City Councilor-At-Large Sam Yoon’s representative David Halbert said. ‘You have to understand that you are both a Boston University student and a resident of Brookline, Allston, or wherever you live in the city.’
Brookline Selectwoman Betsy DeWitt said student’s lives and local government are far more intertwined than students realize.’
‘There are ways where student life intersects with municipal life,’ DeWitt said. ‘When that happens, it is helpful to know who to talk to.’
She told audience members about a recent example that involved a BU student who was assaulted in Brookline at night.’ A representative from the Student Union got involved, which resulted in the police chief involving residents in night patrols in the area
‘Things really improved,’ DeWitt said.
Cambridge City Councilor Craig Kelley said he hopes Cambridge can find a more dynamic way to involve volunteers, who will be needed more than ever in light of the financial crisis. Kelley said Cambridge-area children, for example, have benefitted from Harvard University students who tutored them or gave them swimming lessons.
Halbert said students tend to be apathetic about local elections, and they don’t realize how much political power they really have.’
‘Elected officials and people running for office are terrified of students,’ Halbert said.
‘In the 2005 election, there were 17,000 registered voters. Only 2,366 people voted.’ That is about one-fifth of the number registered,’ Halbert said.
The undergraduate student population at BU is roughly 18,000.
‘Imagine the impact if even one half of the student population at Boston University participated in the election,’ he said.’
DeWitt said many students throughout the city register to vote in their home states rather than in Boston.’
‘The political base of the community is the residents who live there,’ Halbert said. ‘Most of the things we do are pothole kinds of issues. As a student, understandably, those aren’t the kinds of things that move you.’
However, that does not mean students should remain uninvolved, Halbert said.
‘You have the obligation and the opportunity to help with your community,’ he said.
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