Junior Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senator Sam Wallis has centered his campaign for the TCU presidency on improving student life on campus and reducing related costs, while maintaining a strong connection to the student body.
All of Wallis' ideas and proposals are encompassed by two overarching goals — to fulfill the student body's needs and to make the Senate more supportive of student groups — both of which require gathering input from the student body, which he says is exactly what he has done with his campaign.
"We put forth a lot of ideas, and those are all driven from students … I think I have the record of getting things done to show that I'm serious about it," Wallis said.
Wallis' platform is built on the four pillars of community, classes, communication and costs, with the last component a common theme among the first three.
"I [have] proposed a couple of ways to reduce costs including reducing book costs, costs for student life, [finding] cheap ways to get into Boston, reducing dining costs and continuing to increase the [Merchant Off-Campus Partners] program," Wallis, who has this semester been studying abroad in Tel Aviv, Israel, said.
Wallis emphasized in particular that the changes he is advocating would not raise costs for students.
"At this point, I don't want to see tuition increase," Wallis said. "That's my top priority … In this economic climate, I'm not for pushing for things that are going to cost students more money."
As part of his goal to build community, Wallis hopes to increase turnout at athletic events through measures like bringing in performance groups at halftime in order to attract a new crowd, as well as working with the Greek community to have houses host post-game parties.
With respect to academic life, Wallis intends to advocate for course evaluations and research to be put online and to utilize resources such as TuftsLife.com to ensure easy, user-friendly student navigation. This would be the continuation of an ongoing Senate project that he initiated.
Wallis also hopes to facilitate improved communication between different student groups, noting that having multiple overlapping events divides student participation. He noted that bringing groups together to creatively coordinate events would increase attendance and decrease costs.
"There are only so many students and so many days in a week and so many hours in a day," Wallis said. "I want to help [organizations] communicate with each other so we can help [student groups] do what they want," Wallis said.
To this end of better supporting student groups, Wallis discussed his role as co-president of Tufts Roundtable and the tedious process he encountered while trying to obtain funding for the publication. This experience, Wallis said, enabled him to witness firsthand the complexity of navigating the Senate's rules.
"I have the experience of starting a group on campus and trying to go through the budgeting process and really exploring and seeing everything that was wrong with it … There's so many limitations, TCU had so many restrictions," he said.
Wallis has served as a senator for five semesters, during which he has been a member of Allocations Board — which disburses the Student Activities Fee — and two-time chair of the Services Committee.
Wallis highlighted that in line with his campaign theme of serving the student body, the projects he has initiated and advocated for in the past — including expanding wireless Internet and increasing low-cost dining options for students — were largely born out of students' feedback.
"I think the things that I've done were things that we kept hearing concerns from students ... I think I responded to student concerns in a way that was different, not better or worse," Wallis said. "I think my experience is a little bit more tapped into student concerns that they've been bringing forth the past three years."
Addressing Wallis' platform, however, his opponent junior Lauren Levine believes that much of his agenda can be pursued without the added presidential mandate.
"I just think that Sam has a lot of great ideas, and he does have a lot of experience, but I think that all of his ideas can be accomplished in the position of a normal senator, whereas my ideas are bigger picture and address concerns at Tufts that require the role of the president to address them," Levine said.
Senior Adam Weldai, Wallis' campaign manager, noted that the scope of Levine's prior experience is narrower and has mostly been with the TCU Treasury.
"[Wallis] has dealt with administrators, he's dealt with students and treasury issues just as much as Lauren has," Weldai said. "He has more areas of expertise … He thinks about all of the places he's been and how he can use that towards achieving a future goal."
Weldai emphasized that Wallis has the necessary experience to be successful as president.
"Sam's got to be, by far, probably one of the most qualified people for this job that has run for it the past years," Weldai said. "He's got project experience, leadership experience, he's got treasury experience."
Weldai believes that Wallis has the ability to be an effective leader, adding that Wallis' record "speaks for itself."
"Sam's greatest skill, I think, is that he really knows exactly how to motivate people to accomplish their goals," Weldai said.
