The Tufts Community Union Senate covered committee work, checked in on projects and approved supplementary funding in their last meeting before Thanksgiving. The meeting began with a look at the work of the various Senate committees.
Alexander Vang, a junior and the FIRST senator and community & diversity committee chair, reported an unexpectedly high turnout to a community and diversity town hall meeting that took place in the Mayer Campus Center on Nov. 18. The town hall allowed students the chance to meet and question their community senators.
“While the event didn’t last as long as I wanted to do, I think that we still garnered a lot of like interest in a lot of like topics that were brought up from the general student body that we might not have necessarily thought of before, that we can begin to start scaffolding into our processes and mindsets for the future,” Vang said.
Vang said that much of the conversation he had with other students centered around answering questions about how he pushes for change as a representative senator for the FIRST community on campus. His biggest takeaway was that more publicity is needed for senate work, and community senators’ work in particular.
Class of 2027 Senator Aaron Dickson updated the senators on the Services Committee’s efforts to compile discounts for Tufts students at local businesses in the form of a coupon book.
“I’ve started to approach some of the businesses over in Boston Ave, Ball and Teele Square, and eventually, Davis,” Dickson said. “So far, we have Angelina’s Pizzeria and Happy Crab,” he added. They hope to launch the first iteration on Dec. 1.
Angelina’s is offering 20% off of online orders, while Happy Crab is offering one free pound of shrimp with any order greater than $30.95, not including drinks. Both restaurants are located in Teele Square.
Class of 2028 Senator Jesse Kitumba provided an update on his efforts to expand the number of languages students use to fulfill their mandatory language requirements.
“This stems from the many conversations I’ve had with international students who speak a minority language from South or East Asia or Africa,” Kitumba said. He pointed out the lack of options for these students even with the UPenn language exam to place out of their language requirement and advocates for expansion using different testing agencies.
His proposed solution is to expand the accepted language testing standard to include Language Testing International, a more broad based organization that includes over 120 languages.
“You’d be allowing so many more languages and for people who don’t speak one of the major thirty or forty languages to have the chance to opt out,” he said. “There’s not a problem with the UPenn [standard], we just think expanding it to include different testing agencies will allow so many more students to opt out.”
Kitumba referenced conversations he had with students who spoke fluent Igbo or Luganda, which are not covered by the UPenn placement exam. Kitumba is planning on meeting with administrators and language professors throughout the end of this semester and the beginning of next semester.
Senate President Joel Omolade, a senior, recapped a successful meeting with University President Sunil Kumar and various club leaders on Nov. 20.
Omolade reported that most of their conversation centered around Tufts career placement support for graduates and ensuring that students felt they were getting the most they could out of “the Tufts name.”
“There was even a lot of talk about creating some new pipelines and creating new opportunities, just to really support Tufts students and ways that we can bridge the gap between the [medical] school, dental school and even undergrad as well,” Omolade said.
Trustee Representative Chaitanya Arora, a sophomore, reviewed plans for a wellness week centered around the Space, a TCU Senate supported wellness center in the basement of Stratton Hall. Mindfulness, arts and crafts, fitness and meditation are among the activities, planned for 3–5 p.m. each day from Dec. 2–6.
“I think the services committee as a whole feels really good about the entire event,” Arora said. “I think it will be really productive and students are really going to enjoy all of the different opportunities that they have available to them that week.”
The Tufts Singaporean Indonesian and Malaysian Student group was the only supplemental funding request of the night, receiving $4,073 from the TCU Treasury for the planning of their flagship event.
