Students and members of the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate gathered at Hotung Café yesterday for the second of two town-hall forums concerning how the Senate should allocate funds recovered from the embezzlement scandal.
The purpose of the meeting, which was open to the entire student body, was to discuss the 13 ideas the Senate has accumulated over the past month. "We've compiled a list of the main ideas and we want to hear what the community has to say," TCU Parliamentarian C.J. Mourning, a junior, said in an interview before the meeting.
TCU President Duncan Pickard, a junior, explained the process of fund allocation at the beginning of the open-mic forum.
The Senate will consider the opinions it heard last night when it takes a vote of confidence on the proposals on Sunday. The Senate on Nov. 18 will e-mail all the ideas that pass the internal vote by over 50 percent to the student body in a nonbinding survey. The Senate aims to decide how to spend the money by the end of the semester.
The available money, which amounts to $689,775.75, is a replacement for funds allegedly embezzled from money designated for student activities.
Of the ideas that are being considered, the discussion and debate between students gravitated toward four specific projects.
Senator Toby Bonthrone, a senior, pushed for investing at least $500,000 in financial aid funds for students. He cited the country's financial crisis and the fact that as a whole, Tufts students will face a shortfall in financial aid in the coming semesters because of the economic downturn.
"Everyone needs to be scared that our need will increase and Tufts will not be able to match it," Bonthrone said.
Bonthrone said that under his plan, the student body could challenge donors to match the amount of money it gave in separate financial aid gifts. He said benefactors could potentially match the donation many times over.
Calling the Senate a representation of the greater student body, Bonthrone said roughly 10 percent of students in the TCU Senate are suffering financially.
Pickard offered some support for Bonthrone's sentiment, although he did not endorse a particular proposal. "We are under a moral obligation to help the students that need help the most," Pickard said.
Bonthrone called upon the Tufts community's concern for active citizenship to ensure that a lack of financial need does not prevent opportunities.
Drew Frankel, the general manager of the campus radio station WMFO, garnered considerable support for his idea to let the Allocations Board distribute the funds to a variety of student organizations, as it normally does with Student Activities Fee funds. Frankel specifically discussed how WMFO would employ $12,000 of the extra funds to purchase an automation system.
"An automation system will allow us to broadcast when there is nobody in the studio. This would be extremely helpful during the summer when we still broadcast but cannot fill our schedule," Frankel said.
WMFO also needs a $25,000 upgrade in equipment for the studio because most of the equipment was designed in the early 1980s by Tufts engineers, Frankel said. The expansion in technology would also be used to set up remote broadcasting, which would benefit the Tufts community and surrounding towns, according to Frankel.
WMFO members highlighted the importance of the radio to town-grown relations, as it is broadcast throughout Medford and Somerville and some DJs are local residents rather than students. "[The funds could be] something that will have a long-term affect on the station … and the community as well," Frankel said.
There was also significant discussion of using the money to reduce the cost of tickets for on-campus events.
At the first town-hall forum, held last month, the Tufts Mountain Club (TMC) put forth a strong showing in support of its proposal to use the money to fund construction of the Trips Cabin, a supplemental building the TMC has proposed to build at the Loj in Woodstock, N.H.
A contingent of TMC representatives also lobbied for the idea at last night's meeting.
Former Office of Student Activities employees Jodie Nealley and Ray Rodriguez are accused of having embezzled a total of nearly $1 million from funds intended for student organizations. In September, the university paid the Senate over $900,000 in restitution. The body used over $200,000 to pay off organizations' debts, leaving the almost $700,000 that it was debating how to spend last night.
