The Heights - Scholarship issue points to institutional lollygagging

The Heights - Scholarship issue points to institutional lollygagging
Published in the Thursday, April 23, 2009 Edition of The Heights
By Heights Editorial Board

Controversy has arisen surrounding the naming of the Asian-American scholarship offered to rising seniors by Boston College. The scholarship has remained unnamed throughout its 14-year existence, and to many on campus, this has represented a lack of recognition of Asian-American issues on part of the administration.

Student groups on campus recently joined in a movement to name the scholarship for an Asian role model. Through a process that included resolutions passed by the Undergraduate Government of BC (UGBC) Senate and the AHANA Caucus, students nominated activist Aung San Suu Kyi as the new namesake. Additionally, 200 letters of support were collected from the student body expressing the need to name the scholarship. However, when student leaders presented their idea to University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., for final approval, it was neither accepted nor rejected outright.

This result is understandably frustrating for students in the Asian community on campus who have spent years researching candidates, especially for seniors. There exists no explicit framework or rubric for how a scholarship namesake is to be selected. This seems to indicate that the University administrators hold the final authority on choosing the name, a prerogative they have finally claimed in the last week. However, at the same time, the administration has been remiss in their duties to name the Asian-American Scholarship. They have allowed it to exist without a namesake for over 14 years, an unbelievable oversight. Therefore, the onus of name proposal and selection has fallen to student leaders, a duty they have taken very seriously over the past few years. Then, at the culmination of their work, University administrators are unwilling to support their democratically and prudentially-chosen namesake.

Aung San Suu Kyi is eminently qualified to have the scholarship named in her honor. The scholarship's mission statement outlines the ideal recipient - a student with a commitment to academic excellence and a passion for social justice. Suu Kyi is distinct in her activism for being a prisoner of conscience, detained in her Myanmar house for the past 18 years. She founded Myanmar's National League for Democracy in 1988 and led nonviolent protests against the ruling military junta.

Her high profile as a champion of democracy led to her election as the nation's prime minister, a decision that the military junta thereafter nullified. The military dictatorship gave her the option of a permanent exile, but Suu Kyi chose to stay under house arrest rather than leave her people. She has received the Nobel Peace Prize and the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought.

We believe that a scholarship should be named after a person who is an exemplar of what recipients should aspire to. Therefore, in the vacuum caused by University foot-dragging, the administration undermines a certain amount of credibility by not honoring students' judicious and democratic selection of Aung San Suu Kyi.