Mary Hu is a junior majoring in integrative neuroscience.
1. Tell us a bit about yourself — any clubs, hobbies or major plans for the future?
“I have previously served as the president of a multicultural club, International Connection, ever since I joined it freshman year, so I’ve experienced the struggles of managing an e-board, reaching out to other clubs for collaboration on events and maintaining club activities. With the club, I’ve worked and collaborated with a bunch of other multicultural clubs reaching out to international students and domestic students alike and showcase a diversity of cultures and their customs. Through being a multicultural club president, I’ve also been an active participant in a seat on the [Cultural Presidents Council] meetings, where we would discuss multicultural issues that are happening and how we can make a change. Aside from being a president for a multicultural club, I’ve also been involved in [vice president for multicultural affairs (VPMA)] affairs since my freshman year when I started off as the VPMA of my [dorm] building, creating multicultural events and fostering community building for my hall. Fast forward to my sophomore year in BU, I was elected into the position of VPMA of [College-in-the-Woods Council]. In that position, I’ve brought updates in my [College-in-the-Woods] meetings on multicultural matters that are going on and promoted multicultural clubs hosting their upcoming events to the [College-in-the-Woods] community. In addition, I also held office hours and mentored the VPMAs of the different halls in my residential community on creating and organizing events, creating flyers [and] posters, how to use B-Engaged to promote their events, attended their events [and] helped them out with the setup, breakdown and feedback of their events. Thus, slowly introducing the new VPMAs into their position and fostering a close connection, in that they can ask me any questions related to their VPMA role and emphasizing that I’ll be willing to help them out with any part of their events. Also being on the e-board of [College-in-the-Woods] Council last year, we organized a huge successful traditional event called Casino-in-the-Woods before [COVID-19] hit, and we had to leave for the rest of the semester. For Casino-in-the-Woods, I had the role of marketing and promoting the event through campus to get not only students to attend but also [professional staff] and other faculty to have fun, as well as the Food Creation aspect of the event itself. Through this, I have experience negotiating with Sodexo employees and getting certain new theme-specific food to be created for the night, which I believe will be useful in negotiating with them for more culturally appropriate food to be placed on their menu more frequently.”
2. What is your platform?
“My platform is generally upholding, promoting and facilitating a diverse, equitable, inclusive and multicultural University community and implementing more first-generation students, international students and cultural inclusion events that have ceased to be organized since the pandemic hit. I want to stress the importance and participation of multicultural club activities by promoting club activities and their goals to entice more student participation and awareness that I see taking a hit due to [COVID-19] regulations.”
3. Why did you decide to run for a Student Association (SA) E-Board position?
“Even though I’m not going into the political field or majoring in political science, I still want to be able to make a difference and change the multicultural aspect of [BU] that I see lacking action in the current VPMA. With diversity comes inclusion, with inclusion we want to embrace the differences that we have with our fellow students and learn and respect their cultural and religious differences so we can all come together in unity, as immensely proud students of [BU].”
4. Why should students vote for you?
“I have experienced and interacted with the recent two VPMAs in the past, so I’ve been involved in VPMA affairs since [SA President Khaleel James] was in the VPMA position and have continued being involved, even with [SA VPMA David Hatami] in the position this year. Because of this, I have experienced firsthand in what both VPMAs have tried to push during their presidency and what worked successfully and what didn’t work. I’m hoping to build on top of the knowledge that I have from their positions so I can do what is lacking when I get into the position. When I was in my club, I remember attending banquets and mass showcases of different cultures and remember being so amazed at all the performances and proud that we have this [at BU]. Although we are in the middle of a pandemic, I still believe should showcase those cultural fashion, martial arts, music and other performances to BU, even virtually the show must go on! I’ve seen and experienced the devastation when students and the club members found out that they could no longer hold banquets and performances due to the pandemic, and all their buildup and stage art to host has gone to waste. Why should we stop, why can’t we find an alternative to showcase such amazing heritage? Why hasn’t there been a push for a virtual display, even as pictures or videos of such amazing displays of cultural heritage? As VPMA of next year, I will push for those breathtaking showcases to be reborn, even better than ever.”