TCU Senate Update

The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate met last night to tackle its first set of supplementary funding requests from student groups.

Senior Brian Tesser, president of TCU Senate, opened Sunday’s meeting by welcoming the three newly elected trustee representatives and updating the Senate on general news. According to Tesser, 20 first-years will run in Wednesday's elections to become first-year representatives in the Senate.

Diversity and Community Affairs (DCA) Officer Anna Del Castillo, a sophomore, then took the floor to explain that only three of the five open community representative positions — Africana, Asian American and LGBTQ — will be filled after Wednesday’s elections.

Students have not yet expressed interest in running for the women's and Latino community representative positions, so the Senate will have to hold special elections in October, according to Del Castillo.

After general updates, TCU Treasurer Shai Slotky, a junior, presented the first treasury report of the 2015-2016 year.

The report began with TuftScope, an undergraduate journal of health, ethics and policy, which appealed for a supplementary funding total of $992.

TuftScope appealed for an additional $520 over the Allocation Board's recommended amount of $472 in order to increase the number of journals printed.

According to TuftScope Editor-in-Chief Evan Balmuth, a senior, the 420 copies of the journal's issue last semester that were distributed throughout campus were all taken after two days. Balmuth said the group wanted to increase readership of the journal by raising the number of printed journals to 500.

However, members of the Allocations Board and Senate expressed concerns with the appeal, arguing that one semester of increased popularity was insufficient data for a definitive increase in funding. According to Tesser, printing costs are expensive, and to fund it, the Senate would have to see a longer, sustained level of growth from the journal.

After much debate, the Senate eventually passed the originally recommended amount of $472 in a vote of 13-6-1.

After the appeal from TuftScope, the Senate approved funding requests of $350 for German Club, $3,454 for the Stand-up Comedy Collective, $783.57 for the Tufts Podcast Network, $562 for Non-denominational Christian Fellowship (NCF) and $738 for oSTEM. Funding approvals for the Stand-up Comedy Collective passed by a vote of 18-0-2 and 19-0-1 for NCF. Approvals for the rest of the clubs were passed by acclimation.

After the conclusion of the treasury report, the Judiciary took the floor for quick updates regarding the special elections that will take place in October.

According to Judiciary Treasurer Michael Kalmans, a junior, a member of the Tufts Judiciary body resigned last week, which will force the Judiciary to also hold special elections next month, since all formal deadlines for the upcoming Wednesday election have passed.

Kalmans also reminded the Senate that the student-group recognition process will take place this Wednesday.