Editor’s Note: Gunnar Ivarsson is a former chair of the Daily’s Ethics and Inclusion Committee. Ivarsson was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.
The Tufts Community Union Senate met Sunday night to discuss project updates, the creation of official descriptions for community senators and recommendations from the Allocations Board regarding club funding.
First-year Kirthi Vengat, assistant diversity office and disability senator, introduced proposed bylaws for community senators — who collectively make up the Committee on Community and Diversity — which would include details about the position.
“TCU Senate community senators serve as representatives of diverse student communities at Tufts. Their role is to identify challenges affecting these communities, advocate for them and ensure that TCU decision-making reflects the needs of all students,” Vengat said, reading from the drafted bylaws. “Community senators focus on long-term institutional systems, policies and campus infrastructure that affects students across different kinds of identity.”
The bylaws also outlined core responsibilities for community senators, which Vengat read aloud.
“Our core responsibilities are to regularly engage with … communities through meetings, listening sessions, town halls, club meetings, surveys or outreach [and] identify systemic barriers. For example, accessibility gaps, resource inequities, concerns or complaints to distinguish between individual complaints and … institutional problems,” she said.
The Senate is planning several events this week, including tabling in the Mayer Campus Center with the Tufts Mental Health Representatives and Tufts Hooked, as well as a bingo night with the Tufts University Social Collective, according to Services Committee Chair and Class of 2028 Senator Shefali Bakre.
The Senate is also currently accepting applications for the Student Leadership Stipend, which gives “$500 to 20 students across Tufts’ campus” who are heavily involved in clubs, according to Senate Historian and junior Defne Olgun.
Class of 2029 Senator Luke Wakeman provided updates on a project that would allow students to rent sports equipment. He said the equipment had been ordered and would be available in the Campus Center after spring break.
Senators then heard an appeal from the badminton club before approving Allocations Board recommendations. The club initially requested $3,000 to attend a tournament in Philadelphia and sent one representative to speak on its behalf. The Senate ultimately passed the Allocations Board’s recommendation of $2,375.
The Senate passed all of the Allocations Board recommendations for the Pre-Dental Society, Students for the Exploration and Discovery of Space, Tufts Geological Society, Club Tennis and Tufts Electric Racing.
Education Committee Chair Gunnar Ivarsson, a sophomore, spoke about a new participatory budgeting initiative that seeks to allocate $60,000 to fund and implement projects chosen by Tufts students. Municipalities including Boston, Somerville and New York City have implemented similar initiatives to involve the general public in budgeting processes.
“This is money for projects that you guys have been wanting to work on. If there’s something … we haven’t been able to … receive funding for [yet], which is something you’ve been wanting to do, this is exactly the place for it,” Ivarsson said. “If there’s things that people vote for, things [you want] done, this is a place where you can put it.”
TCU President Dhruv Sampat closed the meeting by reminding senators to complete projects by the end of the school year.
“We are coming [toward] that point of the semester where we have maybe three or four meetings left,” Sampat said. “This is really the time for you to dedicate … more time … to getting your projects done if that’s something that you would like to see done by the end of the semester.”
