Fellow Jumbos, I wanted to take the opportunity to give you a brief and hopefully mildly entertaining year in review of things the Senate has accomplished since September.
After being on Senate for all four years at Tufts, I would like to emphasize the enormous amount of respect that our student government receives from administrators, allowing us to bring significant and positive changes to campus.
A year ago I ran for Tufts Community Union (TCU) President on the platform of "Making JUMBO Changes" (ah, the fun of acronyms). While I laid out many different ideas that to some might have seemed overambitious, I insisted that this would be a year in which the Senate would have tangible accomplishments to present to the student body by the year's end.
Granted, not every idea panned out, but here is a rundown of what the Senate (not just myself) has accomplished throughout the year:
Jobs: We created an Internship Stipend Fund that provided 25 $3,500 stipends for students with internships in the public sector. We are currently working on ways to improve alumni relations by hooking up recent alums with the student organizations of which they were a part. Finally, we collaborated with the Junior Class Council and Kaplan to offer free diagnostic tests to students interested in graduate, medical, and business school.
Unite Campus Communities: We established the Community Connections Campaign to bridge the gap between students and neighbors. This included creating a campus calendar, planning a welcome-back BBQ for students and neighbors next fall and lobbying in Somerville to respond to the tragedy earlier this semester by increasing pedestrian safety.
We also presented this plan to the Medford City Council and local Somerville politicians.
Additionally, we organized some great programs: Fall Ball, Halloween on the Hill, Culture Festival, Scavenger Hunt, Nighttime Quad Reception and the First Annual Intercultural Semiformal. We are currently working with the Committee on Fraternities and Sororities to implement a plan of action in response to the Jelke Report evaluating the Greek System.
Finally, we separated Homecoming Weekend and Parent's Weekend for future years so that students will not have to choose between spending time with friends and family.
Money: We increased the Student Life Fund, which was actually created last year, to the largest amount to date to serve as a central pool of co-sponsorship from the administration to support student programming. We also budgeted over $1 million to over 130 student organizations for the fiscal year 2007.
Better Campus Housing: We implemented a Reciprocity Housing Lottery System to help predictability and fairness in choosing on-campus housing; sophomore and senior year lottery numbers are now reciprocals of each other, so if you get the bottom number sophomore year, you will have the top number your senior year.
Additionally, we instituted a rollout of lottery numbers so students will get all three numbers during their freshman year.
Open-Up Technology: Online Add-Drop will be ready by next fall - no more running around to track down professors or forging your advisor's signature. Wireless Internet has also officially been extended to the Academic and Residential Quads and the President's Lawn, and is now fully functional.
We are currently planning the full implementation of a Joey GPS system - test trials have been positive, so stay tuned. Finally, we built a database for off-campus housing reviews on tuftsreviews.com in addition to adding semester-end course review data to the Web site for more concrete information.
Other highlights: Buses galore - Turkey, Spring Break and Boston Bus Shuttles. We welcomed Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, for the 2005 Light on the Hill Award and honored Professor Gary McKissick with the 2005 Professor of the Year Award.
We also lengthened hours of the Library and Tower Caf?© during finals period and lengthened Dining Hall hours until 9 p.m. - got the munchies?
In the future, the Senate should continue making headway on previous projects focused on improving community relations and Greek life, as well as starting new ones. Additionally, significant changes need to be made to the advising system to better acclimate new students to Tufts.
However, starting some new, exciting projects that we don't talk about year after year will be important to get the student body buzzing.
After several productive years, I hope that next year's Senate will seek out the student body as much as possible to receive feedback on projects, hear what students would like improved and show how the Senate is representing all Jumbos.
On a personal note, being involved in Senate - and, specifically, serving as TCU president - has been the most amazing part of my college career. Granted, I learned a lot about leadership, communication skills, negotiating and what it means to give back to the community. But above all, this was so special because of the people I got to meet and work with over the past four years.
So Tufts, thank you for instilling your confidence in me to serve as TCU president and improve this school as best I could - and, more importantly, thank you for making my college experience so unforgettable. Best of luck to the Class of 2006 in all your future endeavors!
Jeff Katzin is a senior majoring in economics. He is currently president of the Tufts Community Union.
