It is with high expectations that we welcome the news that the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate is building a committee on student diversity.
The undergraduate campus could certainly benefit from a student-run group focusing on student needs and concerns pertaining to racial issues. Numerous voices from students and faculty raised over the past few months have expressed disappointment with racism and racial misunderstanding present on campus.
It is clear, after much attention from Tufts media, copious discussion and a Town Hall meeting, that diversity on the Hill is an unfolding issue that demands our continued attention.
We are happy to learn that the committee's makeup will represent a cross-section of the student body as well as the faculty. It is important that the impact of this committee spreads beyond its meetings and to the campus as a whole. We would, however, encourage the Senate to define more clearly its goals for the ad hoc committee immediately in terms of both its composition and purpose.
We encourage the Senate to move forward with more concrete plans for the committee. As of now, a roster of committee members has not been decided upon, nor a schedule for meetings drawn up. It may be easy for a self-titled discussion forum to make little concrete progress, so the importance of specific goals and objectives should be stressed. The committee should have regular conversations and should not exist solely to respond to problems as they arise on campus.
Outreach will also be essential: A working dialogue between 15 committee members does not mean that similar discussions will be achieved in the greater student body. This group will only be as successful as their publicity allows. With a myriad of student-run organizations at Tufts, one more can noiselessly slip under the radar screen.
The new committee should also be wary of redundancy: with its creation, Tufts will have an Office of Institutional Diversity, an Equal Educational Opportunity Committee and a Senate-run group. Although TCU President Mitch Robinson acknowledged the potential for overlap, he noted that the committee-in-progress will differentiate itself as a new discussion forum with new programming. We look forward to hearing exactly what the new programming will be and how it will be different from pre-existing agendas.
We would like to see more substantive proposals for making the committee stand apart from current organizations. With such a significant number of people and resources invested in diversity promotion at Tufts, we hope that students here will start to feel more comfortable on the Hill.
