The Tufts Community Union Senate is one of five members of the Boston Intercollegiate Leadership Council (BILC) selected this month to help draft the body's constitution, an attempt to further legitimize the organization and help it move from discussion to action.
BILC is a network of college and university student government associations from the Boston area founded to encourage intercollegiate cooperation.
"We look at it as a UN of student governments in Boston. … Right now, it's just a conference and we don't do anything after that," Boston College (BC) sophomore David Thorpe, a BILC representative, told the Daily. "We decided to form a constitutional convention where two representatives from each school come together to draft the constitution."
A constitution will create a structure by which BILC representatives can vote on these topics, Thorpe said.
Representatives from the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate will join students from BC, Boston University, Bentley University and Suffolk University in drafting the constitution over the next two months, according to freshman Allie Can Lei, one of the two TCU Senate BILC representatives. They expect to have the constitution ready for the council's fall conference, she said.
Thorpe said the new constitution will help legitimize the council, boosting its ability to turn conversation into action. It will give member schools equal representation to vote on projects, he said.
"I think all the schools should be equally represented so that everyone has a fair say," Thorpe said.
The five groups of representatives were invited from schools that have been active on the council since its beginning and have attended a minimum of three consecutive conferences, Thorpe said.
"These are the five core schools that have been with the council since the beginning," Thorpe said. "They've been to all the meetings and conferences."
Thirteen colleges and universities with five representatives each attended the most recent conference this month at Suffolk University, though not all of these schools are official members yet, Thorpe said.
Representatives working on the organization's first constitution will take the drafted version back to their respective schools for approval, but they have the official final vote, Lei said.
"After we draft the constitution, we will ask all schools to take it to their senates to approve it. Then we will have a meeting to discuss what to do from there," Lei said.
Tufts was one of the three founding members of the council, according to senior Edward Chao, who was involved in the BILC's creation in 2009. The first conference was held at BU, and Tufts hosted a conference in the fall of 2009. Creating a constitution was a goal from the beginning, he said.
"There's always been discussions to formalize the BILC, to make it more of a day−to−day council than a group that meets once a semester." Chao said. "The goal is to formalize actions and make meetings more frequent."
Thorpe agreed that a governing document is a priority for the council.
The constitution needs to be drafted before the council can begin to act on policy suggestions, he said. A constitution will allow students to do something with the conversations and ideas from the conferences, he said.
"We need a constitution to cement things in place," Thorpe said. "It's great to come together and talk but unless something comes out of it there's no point."
Once a constitution is in place, the council plans to put on its agenda support of the reinstatement of an MBTA−run Night Owl bus service and discussion of housing rates in downtown Boston, Thorpe said.
"A constitution will make the council a more formal body that can offer things it couldn't before," he said.
