TCU Senate unanimously passes resolution calling for Hindi-Urdu program

The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate met on Sunday night in the Sophia Gordon Multipurpose Room to discuss supplementary funding, a resolution and a project approval request.

TCU Senate President Brian Tesser opened the meeting by noting that a housing survey, which is a part of the Senate's housing revision project, should be distributed this week, and that there will be a meeting between the TCU Senate ad-hoc housing committee and Dean of Student Affairs Mary Pat McMahon on Wednesday.

TCU Parliamentarian Sam Berzok then took the floor to introduce a resolution which called for Hindi and Urdu, two South Asian languages of India and Pakistan, to be offered at Tufts. It was drafted by Hershel Tamboli, a sophomore representative from the Tufts Association of South Asians, and TCU Senators Benya Kraus and Rati Srinivasan.

After a non-substantive change period and a question-and-answer period, the resolution was passed in a vote of 29-0-0.

Next, TCU Vice President Gauri Seth took the floor to bring about a project approval from Kraus, a sophomore, and TCU Senate's LGBT Community Representative Parker Breza, who are working on bringing an Indigenous Studies minor to Tufts.

The minor would be in the Consortium of Studies in Race, Colonialism and Diaspora, and would complement the recent Indigenous People's Day resolution in order to provide a forum to better represent indigenous voices on campus. The project was approved in a vote of 29-0-0.

Seth, a junior, then went on to go around the body asking for project updates from various committees. These projects include an alumni mentorship program, a resolution to establish childcare support for faculty from the Culture, Ethnicity and Community Affairs committee, Professor of the Year selections from the Education Committee, an Outreach Committee initiative to bring an ice cream truck to campus on Friday, April 29, the discussion of Spring Break Shuttle ticket sales, attempts to repurpose dining hall food for donations from the Services Committee and generation of a survey gaging student opinion with regard to the on-campus pub project.

Afterward, Diversity and Community Affairs (DCA) Officer Anna Del Castillo took the floor to give her updates. She noted that TCU Senate is debating how it funds culture groups, that a constitutional amendment is being written to change the title of community representatives and that the Latino Center is considering changing its name to be less gendered and trying to improve interaction between peer leaders.

Later, TCU Treasurer Shai Slotky introduced several supplementary funding requests from student groups. These were from the Tufts Sino-U.S. Relations Group Engagement, Tufts Financial Group, Students for Justice in Palestine, Tufts TURBO, S-Factor, the Catholic community at Tufts, Tufts Debate Society and an internal request from the TCU Senate for video equipment to produce Two-Minute Thursday updates. All of the Allocation Board recommendations for these groups’ funding passed.

The meeting concluded with reports from the TCU Judiciary and the Committee on Student Life (CSL). The Judiciary has begun the process of re-recognition of clubs, and the CSL is undergoing some internal changes to improve itself.