Three Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate seats left vacant by seniors Michele Shelton and Erin Ross and junior Kathryn Klencheski will be opened up to sophomores after a meeting on Thursday for upperclassmen seeking the positions did not attract any students.
The three senators resigned earlier this semester, leaving open two senior seats and one junior seat. The Elections Board (ELBO) solicited applications for the posts, but none were received before the prescribed 15-day deadline. ELBO then scheduled a mandatory meeting last Thursday night for new candidates, which was unattended.
"The thinking behind that, is if you have senior seats and no one runs, they would drop down to juniors immediately, but since there were none, it all just goes down to the sophomore class," ELBO chair Valentino Caruso said.
Caruso said that ELBO plans to begin advertising for sophomore senate candidates this week, hold another candidates' meeting next Wednesday, and likely holding the election Thursday, Nov. 15.
According to Caruso and sophomore senator Pritesh Gandhi, several sophomores have already expressed interest in running for seats.
"I personally think it's a good thing seats are getting bumped down to a class that really wants to be active," Gandhi said. "There are going to be a lot of sophomores who are going to apply to those seats."
Gandhi said that more than three sophomores might run for seats. Last year's election for open seats in the spring was uncontested.
Gandhi also said that having a class-unbalanced Senate would not adversely affect the body. "I'd rather have a Senate that's active regardless of distribution between classes," he said. "The key is finding active people to represent the concerns of the student body."
Parliamentarian Andrew Potts said that blocks of students from an over-represented class might team up to block votes or push through legislation once or twice a year. He did not see any potential conflicts in opening up all the seats to sophomores.
"People tend to do their jobs, which is the best for all the students as a whole," he said. "It's rare that people gang up on a certain issue. I'm not that concerned about it."
Potts added that the Senate did not experience any conflicts two years ago, when the freshman class was over-represented with nine or ten seats.
The greater problem, Potts said, will be acclimating the new senators so late in the year. "It's tough when someone just jumps in because they feel like the new guy," he said "I think that's the hardest part - having them feel like they're part of the group."
The Senate's executive board will likely meet with the new senators and hold a "mini-retreat," Potts said, to explain the body's structure and committees. "We'll tell them to feel free to speak up and don't worry about making mistakes... to make sure that they feel as comfortable as possible," he said.
Senators have not been actively seeking out candidates, Gandhi said, because prospective senators should be self-motivated. "The goal is to find people who want to do Senate based on their own motivations," he said. "No one is actively recruiting people, which is a good thing."
Sophomore Shaunik Panse, who plans on running for one of the open seats, said that campus leaders should try better to alleviate certain aspects of student life in the aftermath of Sept. 11 to ensure that people feel secure.
"After the terrorist attacks and backlash on this campus and a lot of other campuses, a lot of students felt unsafe," Panse said. "I think it's the job of the senators, not necessarily relieving that feeling of insecurity, but contributing to the overall betterment of everyday life."
Sophomore Abigail Moffat has expressed interest in running for a seat, saying that, as co-chair of the Tufts Feminist Alliance, she can approach issues from a different angle. "I feel that the Senate will benefit from someone with the specific agenda of looking at [issues] with a woman's angle," she said.
