Category: Community
Graduate Student Workers Union Ratifies Contract
After a seven-month strike with impacts felt across the University, BU’s Graduate Student Workers Union approved a three-year contract. The contract was ratified with 87 percent in favor and 13 percent opposed. The union has approximately 3,000 master’s, professional, and doctoral degree students who assist faculty with teaching and research.
Residence Life Union Approves Three-Year Contract
Boston University’s Residence Life Union ratified a three-year contract that will pay a stipend of $1,700 per semester to residence assistants (RAs)—a first for BU. Approval by the union ensures the continuation of the University’s provision of free housing to all RAs. All RAs will also receive free meals, which were previously available only to those based in dormitories.
President Gilliam Launches Living Our Values Initiative
During her inaugural address, President Gilliam announced a new initiative that will focus on “building our skills in discourse,” while “deepening our commitment to free expression.” President Gilliam said, “Creating a community in which each of us can fully contribute to the life of this campus requires each of us to commit to regarding one another with dignity and respect.”
BU Sees Drop in Black Students Enrolled after Supreme Court Ruling
The demographic data for Boston University’s Class of 2028, the first admitted after the US Supreme Court’s ruling that banned colleges from considering race as a factor in admissions, revealed a sharp drop in Black students enrolled, BU officials say. The decline, from 9 percent to 3 percent, was “concerning and disappointing,” President Melissa Gilliam says, and addressing it “will be a priority” for the University.
New Council Will Give BU Staff More Voice in Policy, Decisions
President Robert A. Brown has approved the formation of a new group called the Staff Advisory Council, with the purpose of giving a united voice to the University’s 6,300 staff members who want to make sure they are being heard by administrators as much as students and faculty when it comes to major decisions being made by BU leadership. The council will be made up of 30 members, elected to three-year terms. All of them will be staff level or first-line supervisors—no high-level positions, vice presidents, or senior leaders will serve.
Boston University Opens New LGBTQIA+ Student Resource Center
Following months of preparation, and years of student advocacy, Boston University will soon be opening a professionally staffed campus resource center for LGBTQIA+ students. The center, tentatively named the LGBTQIA+ Student Resource Center, will be housed at 808 Commonwealth Avenue, near existing spaces like the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground and the LGBTQIA+ Center for Faculty & Staff.
Students’ Pronouns and Gender Identities Change in BU’s Updated Data System
Terriers now have the option of updating the University Directory with pronouns and display names—how they identify and wish others to identify them, as opposed to their legal names. They may also choose to provide their gender identities (which won’t be displayed in the Directory). Legal names will remain unchanged in BU’s records. The change is the first in a long-planned modernization of the 40-year-old Student Information System (SIS), the information technology systems that store student data about numerous interactions with the University.
BU Distributes Federal Rescue Plan Money to Students
The University is distributing almost $21 million in federal aid to students financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The money comes from the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, included in the American Rescue Plan enacted by Congress and President Joe Biden in March 2021.
New LGBTQIA+ Center for Faculty & Staff and New Director
The center is one of the University’s 2030 Strategic Plan components. University Provost Jean Morrison and Vice President and Associate Provost for Community and Inclusion Crystal Williams wrote that the center will “serve as a hubway for our workplace community, bringing together LGBTQIA+ colleagues from our Charles River, Medical, and Fenway Campuses through programming, events, and shared gathering space.” Debbie Bazarsky has been named the new director of the center. Bazarsky has spent two decades in the diversity and inclusion field, at Pennsylvania College of Art and Design, Princeton, and Ohio State University.
BU to Require Faculty, Staff to Get Vaccinated against COVID-19
“We all share responsibility for the health of the Boston University community,” President Robert A. Brown wrote in a letter to employees. “We previously mandated that all our students be vaccinated for the fall 2021 semester. It is critically important that our faculty and staff are also vaccinated. We hoped to accomplish the goal of community-wide vaccination without a mandate but kept the option of requiring vaccination open if we did not reach our goal.”
