The Tufts Community Union Senate convened on Sept. 22, discussing the upcoming Student Resources Fair and a proposal to overhaul the way resolutions are processed.
The meeting began with updates from committee leaders on their ongoing projects. TCU Outreach Committee Chair Savvy Thompson announced plans to hold two town hall meetings in October with Arts & Sciences and Engineering students, respectively.
TCU Education Committee Chair Arman Tendulkar asked the senators to volunteer to staff the Senate’s upcoming Student Resources Fair, set for Sept. 27 from 1–4 p.m. at the Joyce Cummings Center. The event, which will showcase different academic and student life resources available to students, will also offer ice cream, raffle prizes and free, professional headshots, Tendulkar confirmed.
Over 30 resource centers are set to attend, Tendulkar told the Daily following the meeting, highlighting the variety of resources on display at the fair and available on campus.
“The idea of the resource fair is to show Tufts students all the resources accessible to them, ranging from Tufts Dining, all the way to ExCollege [and the] School of Engineering,” Tendulkar said. “I think it’s a great opportunity for students to come get free ice cream, enter a raffle and learn about what Tufts has to offer for them and how they can help improve their quality of education at the school.”
In the treasury section of the meeting, TCU Treasurer Dhruv Sampat announced that the work of the Allocations Board would begin this week, and the Senate would begin hearing the requests for supplementary funding by the following week. The Board — made up of Sampat and 10 other senators who are internally elected by the TCU Senate — processes and adjudicates funding requests submitted by clubs on campus.
TCU Parliamentarian Rhoda Edwards presented a new framework for submitting resolutions to the Senate. Edwards said she is aiming for conciseness and clarity in the resolution process.
“I really want to emphasize just the actual resolution itself being a lot more inclusive and well-understood by a greater amount of people so that it can also withstand through time so that people 50 years down the line can read [today’s resolutions] and still be able to understand the substance of what we are talking about and what we are trying to do on campus now,” Edwards said.
Beyond making language more accessible, other features of Edwards’ updated resolution process included a required submission date to better understand the context of the resolutions and a recommended action section that elucidates the desired change of the resolutions down to a few sentences for quicker general understanding.
“It might not seem like that big of a change for smaller resolutions, but given something like the resolution that we had in March, this is something that would be more clearly organized and concise,” Edwards said. “If we are in a situation where we have those large communities of people, where we had to book out all the JCC rooms and [we have] a large audience of people reading these resolutions with us, then [the new process] will make things go a lot quicker.”
As Parliamentarian, Edwards is responsible for gathering resolutions and working with groups to fine-tune them, before proposing them to the broader Senate for a vote within two weeks time. From there, resolutions are submitted to the university administration, where they serve as non-binding requests from the student body.
Edwards told senators she is already in contact with various people about submitting resolutions and hopes to begin bringing resolutions to the Senate floor by October.
In the presidential section of the meeting, TCU President Joel Omolade refocused on the pilot projects of last year’s Senate.
“Last year was a really great year for starting a lot of activities,” Omolade said. “The biggest thing we want to do this year is to make sure these initiatives are either completed or at least there’s some sort of follow through.”
Omolade also mentioned a Senate initiative to place a “medical supplies vending machine” in a dining location on campus, which would provide students with over-the-counter medications such as Advil or Lactaid. He called for senators to give input on what the machine should look like and what kinds of supplies it should include.
“I think this can be a really big thing that a lot of Jumbos in the future could really rely on,” Omolade said.
After the meeting, Omolade told the Daily more about two ongoing Senate projects from last year: organizing more events in the Wellness Center in Stratton Hall and giving students two to three “mental wellness” days.
“The main idea was that students would have the ability to have a cache of two to three mental wellness days,” Omolade told the Daily. “Admin was really receptive to [mental wellness days]. We just want to make sure the follow-through is there.”
Regarding the Wellness Center, Omolade stressed he wanted to see the community utilize the space — potentially via club collaborations — and increase general student awareness of the center.
Finally, the new Trustee representatives, Defne Olgun, Eraste Talla, Tevan Solomon and Chaitanya Arora, were introduced. Trustee representatives serve as the liaison between University Trustees and senators.
In a post-meeting interview with the Daily, one of the new trustee representatives, Chaintanya Arora, shared her excitement about her new role.
“It’s been really cool,” Arora said of her time working with the Senate. “I’m really excited to start getting involved…. There’s a lot of different projects people have coming up, so I would love to get involved in those.”
