TCU Senate reconvenes following spring break

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

TCU President Brian Tesser opened the meeting by discussing the Senate ad-hoc housing committee’s effort to gather student input and submit it to the university's Residential Strategies Working Group (RSWG). He then spoke briefly about Spring Fling, noting that logistics for this year's event are still being finalized.

He ended his remarks by discussing the Late Night Dining program at Carmichael Hall. He said that administrators are satisfied with the program's progress, but that the program is still in a trial period. Tesser, a senior, said the program's future is dependent upon student feedback and its overall success.

TCU Vice President Gauri Seth, a junior, then took the floor to discuss committee updates, including the Senate Outreach Committee's plan to bring an ice cream truck to campus in a few weeks for an event where TCU senators will be available to talk to students about the work that they are doing. She also discussed revisions to the Education Committee’s graduation distribution requirements, which are progressing slowly because they require a lot of work.

Afterwards, Diversity and Community Affairs (DCA) Officer Anna Del Castillo, a sophomore, gave updates, saying that that on April 27, 35 high school students from New York City will be coming to Tufts to talk to TCU senators in order to get a sense of the school and of student life, which will help them decide if they are interested in applying to the university in the future.

TCU Senate Treasurer Shai Slotky, a junior, then took the floor, and 16 supplementary funding requests were discussed. The first order of business was to move $4,000 from the surplus fund to the supplementary fund, which would have allowed all of the requests to be funded as requested, not as recommended by the Allocation Board(ALBO). The body voted for this movement of funds in order to prevent the possibility of having to deny a club funding because insufficient funds were available.

The supplementary funding requests came from the Crafts Center, Imaginet, Non-denominational Christian Fellowship, Coalition for Autism Support at Tufts (CAST), Thai Students Association, Association of Multiracial People at Tufts, Amnesty International, Tufts Cannon, Cheap Sox, TEDxTufts, Tufts Pulse, Tufts University Democrats, Tufts Muslim Students Association (MSA), Hong Kong Student Association (HKSA), Tufts Pre-Med Society and Tufts Primary Care Progress. All of the ALBO recommendations for these requests passed.

Following this, the TCU Judiciary and Committee on Student Life (CSL) representatives gave their updates, and the meeting was adjourned.