The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate voted last night to save some of the $687,780 in recovered funds and put the rest toward student activities. The decision ended a nearly three-month-long process that saw the body work to determine how to dispense of money allegedly embezzled by two former administrators.
The Senate approved a proposal to put $300,000 in a savings account, use $300,000 to create an endowment that will go toward student activities and channel the remaining $87,780 to student groups through the Allocations Board. The body voted 18-8-1 after an evening of impassioned debate.
While the Senate originally reported a balance of $689,775.75, that number stemmed from an internal error.
Senators began last night's meeting with a raft of proposals that universally emphasized fiscal caution in a time of economic crisis. The ideas ranged from establishing an endowed scholarship for students on financial aid to putting the funds aside to accrue interest for a campus center renovation project.
In the proposal's initial formulation, the endowed fund would have eliminated the Student Activities Fee, which is included in every undergraduate's tuition and forms the basis of funding for student groups and projects. That stipulation did not remain in the final document.
TCU Treasurer Matt Shapanka, a senior, explained that the newly created endowment would challenge donors to the university to match the Senate's contribution. As the initial donor to the endowment, the Senate will exercise control over where the money ultimately goes.
"I personally support eliminating the Student Activities Fee down the road, but this doesn't earmark money for that," Shapanka told the Daily after the meeting.
Sophomore Senator Sam Wallis backed the proposal, saying that it returns some money to the students while allowing the Senate to exercise restraint with the bulk of the funding.
"I think it was a nice balance between all of the proposals, and I think we still have the potential to do all the projects we had on the table before," he told the Daily. "By saving a portion of the money, we can see what the university's finances look like after they go through the budgeting cycle and then make a more informed decision."
Wallis cited projects such as extending library services hours and maintaining the Summer Scholars program as possible recipients of a block of funding whose target the Senate can freely determine.
The final vote pitted the winning proposal against one submitted by junior Xavier Malina, who is currently on leave from Tufts but served on the Senate during his freshman and sophomore years. His bid would have added $600,000 to the Senate surplus in order to generate an annual grant used to foster social programming on campus.
Although he did eventually support the winning proposal, Malina criticized its vagueness and urged the Senate to establish more definitively where the money will go.
"We always knew that most of the money was going to be earmarked to be saved, and none of the proposals really outlined anything specific," Malina told the Daily last night. "I think it lacks punch. It isn't going to satisfy students because it doesn't, as of right now, outline anything concrete."
Numerous senators had advocated putting the funds toward supplementing financial aid in order to ease the strain on the university's budget and to ensure that students could remain at Tufts regardless of socioeconomic status.
Senator Toby Bonthrone, a senior who prominently advocated for this cause, said that he accepts the body's decision but urges continued vigilance to shield students from having their Tufts experiences adversely affected by the economic downturn.
"What matters is not what we've done but what we're going to do," Bonthrone told the Daily after the vote. "Even if we had given the money towards financial aid, it shouldn't have slowed us down. We need to keep acting in a manner that doesn't ignore the extent of the crisis."
Senior Sofia Nelson, one of several students who attended the earlier part of the meeting, said that the number of senators who rejected putting the recovered funds toward financial aid was "disconcerting."
"Any effort and gesture this body can make to exemplify how important it is to students to have a need-blind admissions policy is a step in the right direction," Nelson told senators during the meeting, referring to the university's goal of officially establishing an admissions policy that does not take into account an applicant's ability to pay. "The quality of the student experience is dependent on having a diverse student body."
