tuftsdaily4.24.13

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THE TUFTS DAILY

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TUFTSDAILY.COM

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

VOLUME LXV, NUMBER 58

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

Victory for Thibodeau in TCU presidential race by

Melissa Wang

Daily Editorial Board

In the first three-way Tufts Community Union (TCU) presidential race in recent memory, junior Joe Thibodeau won the presidency over junior senators Joe Donenfeld and Christie Maciejewski following a curtailed week of heavy campaigning. “I’m just really honored and humbled for this opportunity,” Thibodeau said. “I look forward to collaborating with many people over the next year and really getting to work in September.” Nine out of 11 referenda on the ballot also passed in yesterday’s election, making changes to the TCU constitution and the way Senate runs. These included adding the Diversity and Community Affairs (DCA) officer to Senate’s executive board and removing the candidate-raised portion of presidential campaign funds. The two referenda that failed, the seventh and eighth, clarified aspects of the constitution regarding voting and the TCU Treasury. The voter turnout for the presidential election was 57.5 percent of the student body — 3,006 undergraduates. This was an increase over last year’s 49.79 percent turnout where 2,574 voted. This year, 40 students abstained. Thibodeau received 1,419 first-place votes, Donenfeld received 960 first-place votes and Maciejewski received 627 first-place votes. The ballots of those who placed Maciejewski as their first choice were then re-distributed among the other two candidates, with 338 votes going to Thibodeau and 219 votes going to Donenfeld. In the end, Thibodeau’s 1,757 votes trumped Donenfeld’s 1,179. Thibodeau’s platform empha-

Oliver Porter / The Tufts Daily

Joe Thibodeau celebrated his election as the TCU President from Spain with his campaign team last night. sized his hope to better support diversity on campus. He served as the Senate’s first DCA officer, and he acted as chair of the Culture, Ethnicity & Community Affairs Committee (CECA). “A lot of my work that I’ve done on this campus, on Senate, has been very collaborative where I’ve reached out to a lot of communities and people,” he said. “I have a deep love for this place and the people that make it up ... I think this reflects that the student body recognizes that there are a lot of different issues on campus. They’re ready for a leader who will bring people to the table, actually

foster debate and create substantive change.” Thibodeau acknowledged his opponents’ accomplishments and was proud of the work they have done to connect different communities on campus. “It’s been such a pleasure to serve on Senate with them for the past three years when we all came in as freshmen,” he said. “The fact that they both ran successful campaigns is a testament to the hard work they’ve put in and the people they’ve connected with.” With a strong campaign team, Thibodeau was able to secure the victory despite not being

on campus for the election. The “Thibs Gets Tufts” campaign included mass chalking and flyering, a flash mob in DewickMacPhie Dining Center, a music video and a cardboard picture of the candidate. “He is abroad in Madrid, but I look around in the group I’m with and there isn’t a better group,” Thibodeau’s campaign manager Rose Mendelsohn, a junior, said. “It speaks volumes to the kind of president he’s going to be that these people gathered in a room to support him while he isn’t here.” “We are so thankful,” she

added. “It makes me really proud of Tufts and so excited to see what he’s going to do with the trust everyone has given him.” Donenfeld congratulated Thibodeau on his well-run campaign and said he supports him as president. “Joe is going to do an incredible job. He’s an incredible guy with incredible ideas and an incredible team behind him,” Donenfeld said. “He has my full support. I love the guy. I had different ideas, but I’ve been with Joe since freshman year.” Despite her loss of the presidency, Maciejewski said that she would still stay on Senate and would consider running for treasurer again, or as a student representative to the Board of Trustees. She thanked her supporters for their encouragement and said she would still work for the initiatives she outlined in her presidential campaign platform. “The support was incredible, and there were a lot of people that I didn’t know who were behind me who were, and I really appreciate that,” she said. “I’m so glad Joe Thibodeau won -- if there was anyone who won it should have been him, and I believe that 100 percent. I’m really happy for him.” Elections Commission Public Relations Chair Paige Newman said that there was likely a higher turnout this year than in past years because of the number of candidates. “We think that the reason why there were so many more people than last year is that there were three candidates rather than two, so that reached out to a lot more people,” Newman, a freshman, said. “What we really liked about this was that more people were able to get engaged in the TCU.”

Office of Equal Opportunity Diversity report reveals lower set for move from Ballou percentage of students of color by Jenna

Buckle

Daily Editorial Board

The Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO) will relocate this summer from the first floor of Ballou Hall to 196 Boston Avenue, with the intention of increasing meeting space and the privacy of the office. The off-campus move will also accommodate the expansion of the OEO staff, including the hiring of an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) specialist, according to Director of Public Relations Kimberly Thurler and Director of the OEO Jill Zellmer. “The new location will offer many advantages compared with the current location in Ballou Hall or any other available space on the Hill, and reflects Tufts’ commitment to strong support for all aspects of equal opportunity and non-discrimination,” Thurler told the Daily in an email. Zellmer explained that many people do not want to be seen coming in and out of the OEO office in Ballou Hall, so the

move to a more remote location will help solve privacy issues. “It provides us with a different level of confidentiality that is better for a lot of people, not just students, but faculty and staff as well,” she said. The OEO currently meets with students, faculty and staff wherever they are most comfortable and will continue to do so after the relocation, but the office will maintain a “swing space” on campus for those who prefer to meet off the Hill, Zellmer said. To access the new OEO location, students can take the Boston Avenue shuttle that runs during the academic year, Thurler said. Zellmer acknowledged that a disadvantage of the new office is its distance from campus, but she hopes to extend the Boston Avenue shuttle service so that it runs all day instead of starting at noon. “It feels far to some students to go down see OEO, page 2

Inside this issue

by

Alex Kaufman

Daily Editorial Board

The President’s Council on Diversity released a progress report April 11 with findings that show a decrease in diversity at Tufts over the past several years and delivers recommendations to the university regarding the undergraduate experience. “Since 2001, [the percent] of Black, Hispanic, Asian undergraduates at Tufts has consistently decreased or plateaued,” the report states. Depending on the topic at hand, the council broadly defined diversity in the progress report as race and ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation and gender identity or expression, physical ability, religion, geographic origin and language background or socioeconomic status. TheWorking Group on the Undergraduate Student Experience (UWG) compiled recommendations based on five majors themes: campus climate, the undergraduate experience, faculty-student relationships, access and equity and data.

The working group found that Tufts enrolled the lowest number of African American or black undergraduates compared to its 11 peer institutions in 2011 and was second lowest in Hispanic student enrollment. School of Arts & Sciences Dean Joanne Berger-Sweeney, who served as the vice chair of the council, said she was surpised that compositional diversity across the school’s campuses had plateaued. “I know that the university has been keeping diversity in the forefront, but without significant increases in the number of people of color in the student, staff, or faculty populations...we must do better,” she said in an email to the Daily. Pan-African Alliance co-president Tabias Wilson said he was pleased with how the report was carried out and appreciated its emphasis on figures and tracking metrics. The numbers, he said, display a stark reality for students on campus. “Tufts has been a draining place, a site see DIVERSITY, page 2

Today’s sections

Political science professor Jeffrey Berry reflects on four decades on the Hill.

Jake Bugg brings his comination of nostalgia and originality stateside.

see FEATURES, page 3

see ARTS, page 5

News Features Arts & Living Editorial

1 3 5 8

Op-Ed Comics Classifieds Sports

9 10 11 Back


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