On Sunday night, the Tufts Community Union Senate met with Medford and Somerville leaders to unveil the Community Connections Campaign, the latest plan to improve town-gown relations.
Attendees included Medford City Council President Robert Maiocco, Somerville Ward 6 Alderman Bob Trane, Somerville Chief of Police Robert Bradley, Somerville Ward 5 Alderman Rebekah Gerwitz, Tufts University Police Department Sergeant Douglas Mazzola, Dean of Students Bruce Reitman and Director of Community Relations Barbara Rubel.
TCU Senate President Jeff Katzin opened the meeting and welcomed community guests. "In past years there hasn't always been an opportunity for student leaders to converse with community leaders to address [mutual] problems and concerns," he said.
He acknowledged that relations between students and community members "isn't always perfect, but we have the ability to address these problems."
The Connections Campaign includes proposals to improve upon three major sources of tension between Tufts students and community neighbors.
The Connection Campaign's goal is to implement programs that "increase services to ameliorate the lack of communication to off-campus students, improve events that keep students on campus, and expand programs that foster student-neighbor interaction."
Efforts to foster student-neighbor interaction is "the area where we can improve the most," Katzin said.
The proposal included the creation of a "Tufts Pride Day," in which students would participate in public works projects around campus. According to the Senate report on the Campaign, "This project will be a great campus-wide community builder and foster the creation of new and stronger student relationships."
The Community Connections Campaign also proposed a "Great Cookout," a network of simultaneous satellite barbeques in the surrounding neighborhoods during the first weekend of the fall semester.
"There is presently no friendly, casual interaction between neighbors, and the first point of contact is usually a negative one," Katzin said in support of the Great Cookout idea.
The Senate also proposed a "Greek Giving Award" that would engage different Greek organizations on campus in a competition to create a weekly service project or program in surrounding communities.
"These activities should be the backbone of the Greek system at any university, and hopefully a little friendly competition will spur positive activities in the community."
To address the lack of communication between the University and students living off-campus, the Senate hopes to create an online database of off-campus housing through JumboAccess.com, which currently provides reviews of professors and classes.
"We want to increase students' awareness so they know what to expect [in advance] and they can better match themselves with appropriate housing," said sophomore Harsha Dronamraju, Senate Parlimentarian.
The proposal also includes an off-campus housing monthly meeting program, which would help students adjust to life off-campus and the accompanying responsibilities.
The Senate also proposed a "borough project" to track student residence: Currently, the University Registrar lacks accurate addresses for many students living off-campus.
By the end of the semester, the Senate hopes to encourage all students to update their housing information to improve the database.
"The more people that we know where they're living, the better we can organize them. We want to create a forum to bring each off-campus student on campus in order to allow communication," said senior John Valentine, Senate Vice President.
To improve programs that keep Tufts students on campus, the Senate stressed the importance of large-scale events hosted by the University, such as Fall Ball and Winter Bash. In the past, these large-scale events have been sources of noise complaints and safety concerns from the community.
Katzin defended the importance of large-scale events. "[These events] are vital to the traditions that we're trying to establish, and they provide a venue for students instead of just roaming," he said.
The Senate's proposal was met relatively well by the community members and Tufts administrators present. "I am very excited to work with the Senate to expand what we're doing [in the Community Relations] office; this should be very positive," Rubel said.
Chief Bradley supported for the effort to draw off-campus students back on campus. The Somerville Police Department struggled with community relations issues this past fall when extra night patrols were deployed to arrest individuals drinking from open containers in public.
"Bringing community into the campus is better than bringing the campus into the community," Bradley said. "I commend you for not only identifying problems but also for coming up with realistic solutions."
The issue of noise violations was also discussed from both student and community perspectives.
"[Noise violations] are a huge source of why students and neighbors interact in a negative [way]," senior and Senator Dave Baumwoll said, offering a student perspective on the issue.
"Neighbors are understanding... but their frustration level builds and builds," Alderman Trane said.
The assembly spoke of a conflict of expectations between students and neighbors, as both parties expect the other to understand their needs.
They stressed the necessity of noise curfews to depersonalize issues of noise violation. Noise curfews already exist but are not considered particularly effective.
Reitman, inspired by the ideas generated at the meeting, pledged to take action to follow through with the proposals and challenged the others to join him in working on these efforts over the summer.
