After a confusing voting process blocked community representative reform from advancing, students will once again vote on the matter this fall. Tufts Community Union (TCU) representatives hope that this time, voters will be more informed and a concrete result will be achieved.
In May's elections, the student body voted on two competing proposals to redefine the role of community representatives on Senate. The proposals were listed as separate referenda items on the ballot and both garnered enough votes to pass, despite being competing reforms that cannot be implemented simultaneously, TCU Judiciary Chair Beth Doyle, a senior, said.
Community representatives advocate for minority groups on Senate and, under the existing system, are — unlike regular Senate members, who are elected by their members of their class — elected by the student organizations that have been granted representation.
Four campus groups — the Asian Students Union, the Association of Latin American Students, the Pan-African Alliance and the Queer Straight Alliance — currently have community representatives on Senate.
Community representatives' voting rights are restricted as they do not vote on financial matters, particularly the Senate's disbursement of the Student Activities Fund.
Then-TCU President Brandon Rattiner (LA '09) last spring convened a Diversity Task Force to explore potential reform to the position, in response to popular dissatisfaction with the existing system.
Senior Nedghie Adrien, former chair of the Senate's Community, Ethnicity, and Cultural Affairs Committee (CECA), explained that the community representatives' effectiveness was hindered by the challenging structure of the position.
"The reps felt that their voices weren't strong in the Senate…because their roles weren't clearly defined and they didn't have the fiscal vote," Adrien said.
Following discussions, the task force drafted a referendum outlining the majority-approved proposal.
Dissenting members of the task force joined with other students to create an alternative referendum, called the Community Empowerment and Equity (CEE) Model, because they disagreed with the task force decision to continue the existing practice of denying community representatives full voting rights, according to senior Chartise Clark, a senator and co-author of CEE.
Senior Nadia Nibbs, a senator who also worked on CEE, said depriving community representatives of full voting rights weakens their voice on Senate.
"Having members who sit on Senate who don't have the same responsibility as everyone else immediately puts them at the bottom," Nibbs said.
The CEE model would grant community representatives the right to vote on all matters and also expands the process by which they are elected — candidates would be nominated by their respective culture centers and would then be subject to a campus-wide vote.
Opponents of CEE argue that granting community representatives a fiscal vote will give students from minority groups a disproportionate amount of influence on Senate.
"I oppose CEE because I believe in one student, one vote," senior John Atsalis, a task force member, said in an e-mail to the Daily. "Minority students vote for TCU Senators, just as I do, and they are able to vote their wishes."
Both proposals tie the community representative position to the culture centers, involving them in the selection and supervision of community representatives.
Additionally, both referenda create a diversity and community affairs officer who would chair CECA and spearhead Senate's minority representation and outreach.
Since both referenda received enough votes to pass, Doyle said it was impossible to determine the opinion of the student body.
TCU President Sam Wallis, a senior, said that this situation arose because the differences between the two referenda were not made clear to voters.
"I think there absolutely was a breakdown in communication, and that's why we got into a situation where we need to have a revote," he said.
Part of the problem, Wallis said, was the short time span between the drafting of the referenda and the vote. The proposals were finalized in the first week of April and voting on them took place April 28.
"They didn't give it the time it needed [last spring]," Wallis said. "I want to give this the proper time and discussion it deserves, and that includes getting this out to the community and making sure the proper information is being spread about both proposals."
Wallis also cited the nature of the voting process as a potential source of confusion. Under Tufts Elections Commission (ECOM) bylaws, the resolutions had to be voted on individually, misleading voters into thinking that both could be passed simultaneously.
Nibbs blamed a lack of communication between Senate, the Judiciary, ECOM and the resolutions' authors for causing confusion and hampering the outreach process.
Wallis said he has worked with ECOM to change the bylaws so that the proposals can run against each other on a ballot. He also plans to convene a council comprised of members of Senate, the Judiciary and ECOM to help coordinate the outreach effort.
