The two candidates for Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate president Lauren Levine and Sam Wallis, both juniors, last night in the campaign's second debate agreed on the need for the Senate to better engage the student body but disagreed on how best to do so.
Levine stressed the need for increasing Senate outreach to the student body and efforts to make Tufts feel like a more cohesive community.
"I'm seeing that every day when I ask the simple question, ‘do you know what is going on in Senate?'" she said. "The answer is usually ‘no.'"
Levine promised to meet personally with students in weekly face−to−face fireside chats, taking place in dorm rooms, club meetings and culture centers, among other locations.
She also proposed releasing a weekly school−wide newsletter that would summarize the discussions taking place in Senate meetings.
"I want the newsletter to come from my personal e−mail address, so that any student feels that they could reply back to me," Levine said.
Wallis disagreed, however, and said that Senate would best reach out to students by taking concrete actions that improved their daily lives.
"Students will know what is being done on their behalf when they can see it every day when they wake up," Wallis said. "That's good outreach, by showing them what we can do, not by talking about what we can do."
Some of such actions he listed included sponsoring a bus to take students into Boston, moving course evaluations online and changing the course registration system to enable students to get into classes that are important to them.
Levine and Wallis both called for measures to increase on−campus security. Levine promoted expanding the blue light system to more areas both on and off campus, while Wallis called for the creation of an independent escort service.
"Students often feel uncomfortable about calling [Tufts University Police Department] late at night, especially if they've been drinking," Wallis said.
He argued that students would feel more comfortable calling a student−run service.
Levine promised to make community outreach a central theme of her presidency, especially to marginalized minority communities on campus.
"Not everyone at Tufts feels comfortable here, feels like they have a home here," Levine said.
She said that many students came to Tufts because of its reputation as a diverse community, but once here, find that interaction between groups is not easily facilitated.
Levine pointed to the fact that bias incidents have occurred every year and that the university lacks a truly diverse curriculum. To support her point, she highlighted the fact that Tufts does not offer students the chance to major in African−American studies, Asian−American studies and Queer studies.
Levine acknowledged that she could not change these issues overnight but as president would seek to engage the whole campus in a dialogue that would propel ongoing progress.
She feels that her role as president would be to facilitate a dialogue that would, eventually, continue on without her.
Wallis said that when discussing issues like diversity, previous Senates have often gotten caught up in specific issues, like bias incidents. He proposed instead a dialogue that would keep focus on the big−picture matters.
Wallis believes that his proposals, such as creating a database for students to learn about on−campus research opportunities, would be long−lasting and build on themselves.
Addressing the effort to move course evaluations online, a project that he initiated and intends to continue, he noted that a student two years from now would benefit from his evaluations of a professor this year and that the program would grow naturally.
Wallis explained that none of his proposals would require much extra funding.
He described his personal leadership style as "bringing people up" and said that his campaign platform originated entirely from student input.
"I've seen presidents try to ram things down the rest of the body … That's a big mistake," Wallis said. "I can motivate people and make them feel like these are their ideas."
Levine similarly said she would make student input a greater factor in Senate deliberations.
"People don't want to be told what's going on, they want to have input in what's going on," Levine told the Daily. "They want it to be a back−and−forth process. That's the really big difference — being told versus having a dialogue."
Levine said that she hopes to spread this idea of inclusiveness to the entire Senate.
"The best thing I could do for the student body is to get Senate to realize [that] we're just 35 people out of 5,000, and we need to listen to what other people are saying," she said.
Wallis believes that as president, his responsibility would be to set out clear priorities for the body.
"I've seen Senates where no clear priorities were ever outlined, no list of what we wanted to accomplish at the end of the year, so Senate didn't do anything," Wallis told the Daily. "What we'll do, if I'm elected, is say, ‘Here's what we want to get done at the end of the year.'"
