PROJECT 1: Decrease the wait time for tap-ride/safe-ride services.

 

If you were calling a Tap-Ride because you feel unsafe in a situation, the wait time for a Tap-Ride sure won’t be keeping you safe.  The demand for these rides are pretty high, so let’s increase the supply and ensure that there is no longer just one TUPD car driving students around campus late at night.

​

PROJECT 2: Support ASAP’s work to establish a student-led “Consent Culture Conversation” program to strengthen sexual assault prevention among residential halls and student organizations.

 

ASAP (Action for Sexual Assault Prevention), in collaboration with Senator Pedro Rivera, has been working on adding another layer to Tufts’ sexual assault training by continuing consent culture conversations with student groups and dorm halls throughout the year.  This would involve training students through a work study position to conduct consent culture conversations with students specifically tailored to students’ backgrounds.  As TCU President, I would continue supporting ASAP’s work by helping with institutional coordination, expanding knowledge of this program to other aspects of the administration, and pursuing a Judiciary bylaw change that would require student groups to go through these workshops each year to be eligible for re-recognition.

 

PROJECT 3: Ensure that Tufts students are seen as people, not liabilities, by re-examining the Tufts Medical Leave procedure and providing students on medical leave with better support.

 

The current system is extremely ambiguous in what qualifies as an “incident” eligible for forced medical leave, lacks a comprehensive evaluation structure to determine whether a leave is indeed the best option for a student’s mental health, and when students are on leave, the process of returning to Tufts is often unclear and unsupportive.  We must re-evaluate whether the current process serves the student’s best interest, or the university’s, and work to change/strengthen these policies accordingly through the CSL (Committee on Student Life).

​

PROJECT 4: Ensure that Tufts maintains its commitment to protecting and supporting undocumented students.

 

This means ensuring that Tufts refuses to comply with ICE officials, absent a subpoena, as well as expanding admission to undocumented students, supporting Dean Mack’s office in their support towards low-income and undocumented students, and ensuring that undocumented students can get paid for on-campus jobs and summer scholarships. These efforts will be achieved in partnership with United for Immigrant Justice, undocumented students, and Dean Mack, centering the activism that these groups have already done.

 

PROJECT 5: Establish open office hours for the Tufts Center for Mental Health Services across different locations on campuses.

 

Instead of requiring students to always go to Tufts CMHS, let’s end the stigma against mental health by normalizing mental health care and support and make services more visible and accessible to Tufts students. Yes, this includes more therapy dogs (!!) and will center the work and leadership of groups like Active Minds and the President’s Mental Health task force.

 

PROJECT 6: Continue the “Swipe it Forward” meal bank initiative.

 

A CECA initiative, Senators Shannon Lee, Jacqueline Chen, and Celeste Teng worked with Dean Mack to tackle food insecurity on campus by creating a meal bank system that allows students in need of extra meal swipes to rely on a meal bank supplied by their fellow students.  This program is about social co-responsibility, and hopefully can be used later on as data points in fighting for a more cost-friendly and sensible dining plan.

​

PROJECT 7: Organize a community-wide “food pantry” system on campus.

 

Currently being pioneered by Senator Jacqueline Chen, I will work with her to pursue the possibility of opening a “food pantry’ system on campus where students in need can receive free food/everyday necessities when they are running low and unable to get access to basic needs.  The Drama Department currently offers free laundry services and meals on specific nights, so I hope that as President, I can help coordinate and streamline all these great initiatives and publicize them better to the student body.