Office hours are not just for professors anymore.
State Representative Carl Sciortino (LA '00), state representative for the 34th Middlesex District, visited the Mayer Campus Center Jan. 13 during the open block. Sciortino, who was elected to the representative seat in November 2004, held office hours at Tufts to answer questions about the state legislature.
"My primary goal is to make sure that students know the state government is accessible to them. As their representative, I want to make sure that they know how to reach me," Sciortino said.
Parked in the campus center lobby with a newspaper and a cup of coffee, Sciortino said that office hours give him an opportunity to meet new people.
"Right now I hold office hours in both Medford and Somerville on a regular basis in local caf?and restaurants," he said. "People do show up to those. I am always impressed on how people from the community actually utilize this time."
Tufts is the first university to enjoy Sciortino's presence. "This is the first school in which I am holding office hours right now," he said. "Since I represent Medford and Somerville, and this is the only school in my district, I have no plans of doing this in other schools."
Students - some of whom were former interns for Sciortino - stopped by the table and greeted the state representative, who had a lot to stay about his Tufts interns.
"We work really well together," he said. "They do everything."
Sciortino, however, was not exactly deluged by visitors. "I guess next time I might bring something to decorate the table," he said. "Perhaps chocolate, or something to give away for free."
Nonetheless, he said that his presence at Tufts was just an experiment. "I had no idea whether people would actually show up or not," he said.
Sciortino said that the Tufts campus still feels familiar and has not undergone any great changes since he graduated. Sciortino did notice some small changes, though: "Some of the buildings are new, and we definitely didn't have TuftsLife.com when I was here," he said.
When Sciortino is on the Tufts campus, he said he feels as if he never graduated - except for the fact he recognizes no familiar faces.
"I never actually left the area, so I am still quite familiar with the campus itself," he said.
Some faculty members - including University Chaplain David O'Leary and English Professor Neil Miller - stopped by to talk with Sciortino.
Miller volunteered for Sciortino's campaign, and both Sciortino and Miller agreed that students should get more involved politically. Sciortino commented on how the Tufts Democrats helped his campaign in 2004.
"Since the Tufts Republicans were leaning towards the other candidate, we had to go for the Dems," he said.
Sciortino found himself embroiled in controversy during his 2004 campaign, when, after winning the Democratic primary, he was challenged by 16-year incumbent Vincent Ciampa, who conducted a write-in campaign.
In the second stage of the campaign, The Parent Rights Coalition (PRC), a conservative Somerville group, sought to discredit Sciortino with mailings that called him an "anti-Catholic extremist" and "militant homosexual activist."
PRC had no affiliation with Ciampa, and Sciortino did win out in the election on Nov. 3.
CORRECTION ADDED: FEB. 15, 2006Yesterday's front-page article "Sciortino returns to Tufts, discusses state politics" (Feb. 14, 2006) was incorrectly attributed to Daily Staff Writer Jenna Nissan. The article should have been attributed to Daily Staff Writer Cristina Lara.
