It was in with the new leadership and out with the old at this year's Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate in-house elections. For three hours last night, the members of next years TCU Senate elected their officers for the 2005-2006 school year.
Current TCU Vice President junior Rafi Goldberg was defeated in his run for re-election by fellow junior TCU Senator John Valentine.
"We have so much talent in this room, and as vice president I am going to commit myself to .... tap the untapped ability in this Senate," Valentine said.
While Goldberg said that "a lack of transparency in the student government has led to apathy in the student body," Valentine spoke more of improving intra-senate relations.
"I want to have one-on-one meetings with everyone on Senate - what you like about Senate, what you don't," Valentine said. He also stressed a desire to improve Senate-administrator relations.
Later in the meeting, Goldberg was elected as the TCU Senate's Web Surveyor.
In an election for TCU Senate Parliamentarian, freshman Harsha Dronamraju beat the incumbent sophomore TCU Senator Brody Hale for the position. Dronamraju said he promises to work on educating new senators about the processes and workings of the body.
"As a first year senator, we are all a little apprehensive. When we are elected to this body, it is our job to represent our constituent, and how are we supposed to do this if we are apprehensive in the first place?" Dronamraju said.
Hale could not pull off a victory despite his experience and professed love of the Parliamentarian job. He ran for several positions throughout the night, including Education Committee Chair and Council Chair for several Allocations Board (ALBO) committees. He was not successful in any of the runs.
In uncontested elections, sophomore TCU Senator Harish Perkari and junior TCU Senator Ed Kalafarski accepted the positions of TCU Treasurer and TCU Historian, respectively. Kalafarski said he would like to change the perception of the Senate on campus.
"Senate has a [public relations] problem, and that's a concern because if the Senate doesn't have the backing of the student body, then it hurts the effectiveness of the [Senate] body," Kalafarski said.
Freshman TCU Senator Jonathan Adler, elected chair of the Public Relations committee, echoed these concerns. He said he promises to organize "meet and greets" not only between the senators and faculty members, but also between members of the TCU and of various student organizations on campus.
In the last hour of the meeting, senators chose council chairs who will make up next year's Allocations Board. TCU Senators sophomores Denise Lyn-Shue, Ivan Nurminsky, and Rob Kim, as well as freshmen Dronamraju, Evan Dreifuss, and Jonathan Adler will be the six non-freshman council chairs in the 2005-2006 school year. The last two slots will be filled in the fall by senators from the Class of 2009.
