Joe Donenfeld, a junior, is running for Tufts Community Union (TCU) president on a platform of increased Senate accessibility and transparency that he hopes would enhance campus communication and unity.
Donenfeld has been a senator since the fall of his freshman year and was a member of Allocations Board where he chaired Council IV, the group that provides funding to campus religious groups. He served on the TCU Senate Executive Board his sophomore year as historian and previously chaired the Student Outreach Committee.
His focus, he said, is on improving communication throughout the Tufts community.
I define the presidency [as] someone who can bring people together, Donenfeld said. More than bringing people together, its also making the voices in the room stronger.
Donenfeld explained that many students are unaware of what Senate does and many groups are unaware of the support it can provide. Improving outreach to these groups, he said, is important to increased discussion and collaboration.
I was shocked to find out that a lot of students that were in charge of really big clubs had never been reached out to by a senator?and didnt know that Senate was a place they could go, he said. Thats a huge problem. [Senate] is meant to be a place where students can come express themselves, share perspectives, collaborate on ideas, and so the real challenge we face is how do we change that?
Donenfelds campaign manager, Martha Meguerian, said Donenfeld met with many student groups while he considered running for president. She said much of his platform is based on those groups issues and desires.
We made a list of all the different groups that we thought needed their voices heard more and we started going to them and having meals with them and saying you know, Im thinking about running for TCU president, and tell me about your issues, Meguerian, a sophomore, said. [Joe] said, if Im running for President, Im putting this on my platform, and then I would watch him put them on our Google document.?I think thats pretty unique.
One of Donenfelds priorities would be to create feedback loops in communication between various Tufts organizations, the Senate and the administration so all parties involved can understand what is happening and can continue to make their voices heard.
An area where Donenfeld believes this feedback loop is applicable is with Tufts creation of a strategic plan. He has proposed a student-led strategic plan to complement Tufts: The Next 10 Years, the strategic plan created by the administration.
All of these student groups on campus will work within the confines of their communities on the issues they care about, but a student-led strategic plan could congregate all of these ideas, Donenfeld explained. I think it would make our voice clear and lucid. I think it would add institutional memory. I think it would give us a sword and shield to equip ourselves with.
This student feedback, Donenfeld hopes, can contribute to sexual assault and alcohol policy reforms. A member of the fraternity Delta Tau Delta, Donenfeld explained that he has witnessed the negative impacts of both policies and is a proponent of reducing bureaucracy in the sexual assault policy. He cited the possibility that the school will move the Office of Equal Opportunity off campus as a major concern of his.
Students who get sexually assaulted have to deal with an intense bureaucratic process that includes seven different offices on campus, he said. We need to first congregate that information in one place and we also need to create an advocate that can help survivors navigate the process.
Donenfeld explained that dissatisfaction with the existing alcohol policy is an issue of campus culture. He said too often freshmen who are drinking will close the door to authority figures, resulting in frequent hospitalizations. He cited the creation of social spaces for freshmen and the creation of a non-disciplinary advisory figure in dorms such as the Academic and Community Engagement (ACE) Fellow as important improvements.
We need to make sure that theres alcohol education involved in orientation and
extended throughout the year so that students really understand what it means to drink, he said. If students have a drinking problem, being on [probation level 2] is not going to solve it. We need to make sure that students get counseling, we need to support our peers, not condemn them.
He said that increased transparency and openness, components of his platform, are also applicable to his academic policies. He believes students should be able to take distribution requirements pass/fail to enable students to achieve a more expansive education.
The point of distribution requirements is to get a wide breadth of education, he said. However, by taking them for a grade, students are led to take the easiest possible class they can get away with and the problem is that deters students from really expanding the scope of their education.
Whether he advocates for the creation of a van fleet, for increased funding for club sports, or against the Committee on Student Lifes decision to provide a justifiable departure from the nondiscrimination policy, Donenfeld said that he will listen to the voices of the student body.
The most important gem of information I can gleam going into this presidency is that every student on this campus is unique, every student has different priorities on this campus, he said. The most important thing that I can do as President is give students a voice and make sure that Senate is a place where they can express themselves and that Im accessible to them.
Meguerian said Donenfelds ability to listen as well as his his approachability separate him from other candidates and would be an important part of a Donenfeld presidency.
I think that having the quality and the skill of facilitating [action] and friendliness?is something that makes someone really qualified to be a good president, Meguerian said. He has gained the ability to walk into a room?of DTD brothers, the Latino House or the Africana Center and be comfortable.
