Plagued by perceptions of inaction, the Boston University Student Union will reformat its General Assembly meetings in a way designed to tell students about specific achievements.
Instead of GA meetings consisting of major progress reports about each committee, each biweekly assembly will focus on the work being done by one faction.
‘Now every single GA [meeting] is going to have a very specific theme and spotlight on one particular advocacy area,’ Union President Matt Seidel said. ‘Right now we are throwing everything all the time at students, and it just doesn’t make sense.’
By changing how meetings are run, Seidel, a College of Arts and Sciences junior, said the Union’s actions should be more apparent because the advocacy group will be able to present projects in a more finalized form rather than force committee members who are working on long-term projects to deliver incomplete reports.
‘There was this pressure not in a good way, not in the way that you felt invigorated by it,’ Seidel said. ‘If everyday you feel like, ‘If I haven’t achieved an entire event or put together an entire report, I’ve failed,’ all that does is creates a cyclical process where you feel bad, and then you feel like you aren’t doing a good enough of a job, and then you feel worse, and then you lose control of it.’
Academic Affairs Chairman James Sappenfield, who does not expect to speak at a GA meeting until late this semester, said he thinks removing the pressure of a biweekly report will foster procrastination.
‘My only concern would be that instead of people being consistently productive throughout the year, they are just going to focus on their day and produce a bundle of information that is not what they would have produced if they had been productive throughout the year,’ Sappenfield, a CAS and School of Management junior, said.
However, Union’s Executive Board members said they plan on holding the committee chairs accountable and do not foresee any problems with projects being put off.
‘If people do procrastinate until the week before they report, I’m sure that the finished product will still be a good one,’ Union Vice President Paula Griffin, a CAS junior, said.
Other cabinet members said they think the change will allow the GA meetings to operate more smoothly.
‘I think meetings were inefficient due to the fact that we were bogged down by constantly looking at one issue, or we were bogged down by having to meet a deadline,’ Campus Safety Chairman and CAS senior Leo Gameng said.
Despite this modification, the Union’s overall operations are not likely to be heavily affected, Union leaders said. Committees will still get together once per week, and chairmen will deliver progress reports at cabinet meetings.
‘I don’t think that GA has ever expedited anything that we’ve done,’ Technology Chairman and CAS senior Justin Kaufman said. ‘It certainly helps as a source of feedback, but I don’t think that we need GA [meetings] in order to make progress on our projects.’
Still, Seidel said he expects the Union to achieve more by using this system because it will give the cabinet clear deadlines and objectives.
‘Now they have tangible goals for the semester,’ Seidel said. ‘We don’t have nine to five to work on this stuff. People have classes. They have other obligations. So unless we make it work for the individual, it’s not going to work at all.’
Seidel said he did not want to release the GA schedule because he said the dates are subject to change.
Tonight’s GA meeting at 8:15 p.m. in the College of Arts and Sciences room 211 will be environmentally-themed and will focus on meetings between environmental groups and the administration, campus recycling and sustainability education, Environmental Affairs Director Hannah Leone said.
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