TCU Senate discusses funding requests and current projects in weekly meeting

The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate met last night to discuss supplementary funding requests and project updates.

TCU Senate President Brian Tesser opened the meeting with a recap of the expansion of Late Night Dining program at Carmichael Dining Center. He also reminded TCU senators that he had posted a sexual assault prevention blurb in their internal Facebook group to gather input on actions to take in response to a Feb. 26 university email regarding a sexual assault incident.

Following, TCU Treasurer Shai Slotky took the floor to discuss two supplementary funding requests from student groups.

The first was from Tufts Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES), which wanted funding for FieldEx, the annual Field Exercise in Peace and Stability Operations, a 24-hour event. The group's originally requested $3,282.61 to the Allocation Board (ALBO), but ALBO factored in more personal contributions to bring the recommendation down to $1,082. ALLIES appealed this deceision and came in to the meeting to defend the request.

This process involved a five-minute appeal from ALLIES, a five-minute response from ALBO and two ten-minute question and answer periods. However, before the meeting, ALLIES members made some changes to the request and lined items in the budget without consulting Slotky or ALBO first, which is not in line with the Treasury Procedures Manual (TPM).

This change caused general confusion amongst the body. Therefore, after looking into tabling procedures, there was a motion to table the request, meaning it will be temporarily put on hold and brought up for discussion again at next week's meeting. Slotky, a junior, said this was the first time he had witnessed this sort of mix-up in his three-year serving on the TCU Senate.

The second request was from the Muslim Student Association (MSA), which wanted $1,450 for a speaker honorarium to bring leading Islamic scholar AbdelRahman Murphy to campus. ALBO matched this recommendation, which passed in a vote of 28-0-0.

TCU Senate Vice President Gauri Seth was absent from the meeting, so Tesser, a senior, spoke in her place. He announced that applications for Senate Webmaster would be up soon so that the Senate website can be updated to be more functional.

In terms of project updates, the on-campus pub project continues to move forward, as does a project to further improve Counseling and Mental Health Services outpatient resources. In a separate project update, TCU Senator Josh Davis said he spoke with the Tufts Emergency Medical Services (TEMS) coordinator about the possibility of stipends for EMTs, including the members of TEMS.

Diversity and Community Affairs (DCA) Officer Anna Del Castillo mentioned that the Indigenous Peoples' Day team is working on implementing the change on all Tufts campuses, because as of now, the change only applies to the Medford/Somerville campus. TCU Senator Benya Kraus added that she and TCU Senator Parker Breza are working to establish an Indigenous Studies minor for next academic year as well as trying to hold a workshop for programming on Indigenous People's Day.

Del Castillo, a sophomore, then took the floor to make her announcements about upcoming events. Community updates from the body included progress on making free tampons and pads available in Dowling Hall,the Campus Center, Tisch Library and dining halls, along with progress to include gender identity and sexual identity on the application for admission to the university.