An appreciated gesture

    On Sunday Tufts Community Union (TCU) President Duncan Pickard announced that the university had repaid the Senate for the money that former employees Jodie Nealley and Ray Rodriguez allegedly embezzled. We at the Daily welcome this news.
    The university has filed an insurance claim and is waiting for a payout. It would have been easy to keep the Senate waiting too, but the response has instead been proactive. While the Treasury would have hardly fallen apart had the administration dragged its feet, what's important about the move is the symbolic message that making student groups whole is an important objective.
    Certainly, the administration's response has not been perfect. University Treasurer Thomas McGurty set aside the money for the Senate in June, but senators did not find out about this until earlier this month. In the interim, university officials were crunching numbers to find out exactly how large the payout to the Senate would be — a process that should have been more transparent. When such large stakes are on the table, leaving students in the dark even for a few months is far from ideal; nevertheless, the final outcome is nothing but admirable.
    In the wake of the embezzlement scandal, it has become necessary for the administration and the Senate to go above and beyond the call of duty in many respects.  This is, after all, a situation in which no governing body wants to find itself with almost a million dollars missing, financial records a mess and numerous student groups crying foul.
    The Senate, always underappreciated by the student body, was faced with the daunting task of redoing the books and reassuring the students. The Treasury has had to change its banking system, repay old debts, and begin interacting with new employees. The administration, meanwhile, allegedly betrayed by trusted employees and friends, was forced to regain the confidence of the community. Both the Senate and the administration have performed admirably through difficult times, and this was brought home to us by the administration's actions over the weekend.
    Tomorrow, of course, we at the Daily will likely have to go back to pointing out hypocrisy and mismanagement. But the administration's actions in making good on its pledge to reimburse the Senate without even waiting for the results of its insurance claim struck us as a decidedly decent thing to do.
    We would just like to say thank you.