Unless the presidential duties of the club Paragon can be transferred, president Michael Kelly will soon step down and discontinue the two-year-old organization. Paragon was created to work for improvements in student life; founders hailed it as an alternative to the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate.
The club brought Tommy Hilfiger to campus last year but was inactive during the fall semester. It has seen a period of low membership since most of its members graduated last spring.
In a Feb. 3 e-mail to Paragon members, Kelly wrote that because of the lack of club activity throughout the 2001-2002 academic year he will "take the necessary steps to kill the club" unless someone steps forward to assume his position. He said that his busy schedule does not allow him to continue as president, although he will remain involved as a contact.
Randy Wells and Damon Meyer, who served as club co-presidents before graduating in 2001, founded Paragon in the spring of 2000. Wells and Craig Waldman, who acted as vice president for a short time, were former Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senators who had become disillusioned with the Senate's ability to address student concerns.
Sophomore Philipp Tsipman, a second year member, expressed interest in replacing Kelly as president. "We haven't been active really this year, and right now we're looking to restart it perhaps," he said. He added that although the club is not guaranteed funding next year, the next step is to take advantage of the funding currently available through the Senate and to try to gather the momentum to maintain Paragon in coming years.
Tsipman said that a chief function of Paragon is "to provide a forum for people to improve Tufts in any way that they'd like." He added that if he can help organize students to collaborate on ideas, "I think that Tufts would be a better place for it.
"Some things are better done by the Senate, but other people need to get involved to make [the University] better," he said.
Both last year and at the beginning of the 2001 fall semester, Paragon conducted a student survey in the dining halls in an attempt to gauge student opinion on possible University improvements. While responses included improved campus appearance and lighting, better vending service, and more reliable Points Plus machines, "not really any progress [was] made because we only have a few members," Kelly said.
Junior Adam Biacchi - a Tufts Community Union Judiciary (TCUJ) member - remembers when the initial Paragon proposal was submitted.
"The way the Senate changes things is they lobby administration to change, and that's essentially what Paragon wanted to do," Biacchi said. "They kind of admitted doing the same thing but said there is a limited number of senators, and why shouldn't everyone be able to help out and make university a better place?"
In March 2001, Paragon brought Hilfiger to campus as the kick-off speaker for the Entrepreneurial Leadership Lecture Series, part of the Entrepreneurial Leadership program created by engineering school Dean Ioannnis Miaoulis. The club lobbied for the installation of lighting on Professors Row over the summer and cooperated with the Admissions Office to improve campus directions and install signs both on and off campus.
