December 2020 Update

Dear BUA Community,

In order to increase our interactions with the BUA community, we will be sending monthly minutes that recap some of the projects and initiatives undertaken by Student Council. To start this, the December edition of our minutes is below. If you are interested in learning more about any particular project, please reach out to the respective committee heads, your class representatives, or the officers of Student Council. As always, you are more than welcome to join our weekly General Meetings. The specific timings of the General Meetings and individual committee meetings will be communicated to the entire student body next semester (2021). 

Sincerely, 

Student Council 

December Initiatives 

Policy Committee

(Mell Aguiar- aguiarm@bu.edu) 

Peer Advising System: There has been a growing concern amongst students that the current peer advising system is not adequately addressing their needs. For instance, there often tends to be a communication gap between advisees and student-advisors, which leads to inconsistencies across peer groups. In turn, the main purpose of the Peer Advising system has been diluted to the point where neither the student-advisors nor the advisees feel it is achieving a common goal. 

To gain a deeper understanding of these struggles, the Policy committee released a survey to the entire BUA student body. Based on the results of the survey, the committee has been discussing potential changes with the BUA administration, including Dr. White, Ms. Shannon, and Mr. Kolovos. While no concrete solutions have been implemented yet, this project is actively being pursued. 

Multilingual Admissions Tour: As BUA expands its reach to students of all backgrounds with regards to high school admission, Student Council is currently working with the BUA Admissions team to create multilingual admissions tours for prospective families who may not speak English as a first language. Ms. Hakimi has reached out to the BUA community in order to gather potential students to help out with this project. Over this winter break, students who have already expressed interest are currently working towards recording these information sessions in various languages. While the interest form deadline has passed, please reach out to Ms. Hakimi or the Policy committee if you are interested in participating and helping out. 

Resources

(Lizzie Seward- easeward@bu.edu)

Health and Wellness: The resources committee is examining the Health and Wellness program at BUA. In the hopes of improving the material and student motivation in the class, the Resources committee is working with Ms. Weiskopf to discuss ways to improve course effectiveness and student engagement. Early next semester, the Resources committee will be surveying the student body to further understand the specific challenges and success of the current program. We will continue to work with BUA students and Ms. Weiskopf on this project. 

Mental Health Resources at BUA: The Health and Wellness discussions are part of a greater initiative undertaken by the Resources committee to improve mental health resources at BUA. This committee will be working with the BUA administration on enhancing these resources.

Events

(Mia Shapoval- shapoval@bu.edu)

Trivia Night: Trivia Night occurred in late November and the Events committee worked hard in order to make this event a success. Based on the feedback from students many were pleased with their overall experience. If you have suggestions on how to improve virtual events, such as the Trivia Night, please contact the Events committee. 

Future Suggestions: The Events committee is currently curating a list of potential events due to ongoing pandemic. Unfortunately, some of the events we would have done in a normal year are in limbo, however we are working hard to find enjoyable alternatives. If you have suggestions for potential Spring 2021 events, please contact the Events committee or your class representative. 

Public Relations

(Shizhong Xu- sxu6@bu.edu)

Improving Communication: As most BUA clubs and activities have moved to a remote format have found that this has made it more difficult for Student Council to communicate with the study body. We feel it is vital that students have access to the projects and discussions we are working on and that students have an opportunity to participate should they want to. To address this, we will be sending these monthly summaries to students. These minutes will include various initiatives in each committee and other relevant notes. In addition, the PR committee will continue to post updates on the BUA Student Council Instagram page (@bua_stuco). For students that do not have Instagram, you can access the same content at buacademy.org/stuco/instagram. The live meeting minutes document is also located on the website, should you want up-to-date information sooner than once per month in this newsletter.  Many of these new initiatives were gleaned from the recent survey sent to the student body. Thank you for your suggestions! We welcome you to submit suggestions to our anonymous form at any time. 

If you made it down this far, yay! Thank you for taking the time to read this month’s minutes. Or if you’re lazy, thank you for at least opening the email and scrolling to the way bottom to spur your curiosity. Alexander Jin will give you free virtual lessons on Chinese culture next semester to commemorate your great effort. Please stay tuned next semester for more updates and meeting links from Student Council. Happy Holidays!