Last Sunday, the TCU Senate approved 11 out of 12 proposals for surplus grants, with a total of $167,900 distributed to various student groups and causes. The surplus grants came out of unspent Student Activity Fee funds, with the remnants being rolled over into next year's surplus.
Though it approved requests for vans and materials by organizations including the Crafts Center and Tufts University Television, the Senate rejected only one proposal for the use of surplus grants: the Office for Campus Life's request for $36,000 to finish renovations in the Mayer Campus Center. They believed that this was not in keeping with the spirit of the activities fund — that is, it was not a student activity but rather something that should be covered by the administration or by some other source of university funding.
And yet, the TCU Senate approved $25,000 to put toward a fund to create a statue of Charles Tufts.
The statue's merits can be debated ad nauseum by the Tufts community, and the senate itself debated for 90 minutes over whether or not to fund it. And while it could potentially be seen an inappropriate use of these resources, we believe that it has the potential to bring the community closer together and to serve as a focal point of school pride, as long as it follows the guidelines of Student Activity Fee expenditures.
For example, instead of commissioning an outside artist to execute the statue, a university−wide competition could be held to select a student design. This venture could involve collaborations between students in the fine arts — both at Tufts and in the combined degree program with the School of the Museum of Fine Arts — and engineering programs. It could even involve a classroom component.
Whatever its final manifestation, we believe that the creation of this statue should involve students in a central way in order to follow the Senate's stated goal of spending Student Activity Fee funds on student activities.
