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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Monday, November 19, 2018
tuftsdaily.com
Department status will address RCD’s staffing issues RCD
continued from page 1 “To hire faculty means that you are able to build over time; you are able to think about new kinds of tracks, new kinds of programs,” Manjapra said. But not being a department was not the only obstacle that the RCD faced in shoring up faculty hires, especially in tenure-track or tenured positions. Glaser said that budget constraints in the School of Arts and Sciences may also pose a challenge to RCD’s process toward expanding its staff. “Faculty lines are harder to come by right now because of our fiscal situation,” he said, “But my colleagues in the RCD understand this and are working with us to devise a plan to get them
to where they need to be in terms of their size and we’re dedicated to getting to that.” The RCD’s push for departmental status has received approval by the provost, president and Board of Trustees, Glaser said. They now look toward hiring new faculty and implementing administrative systems before becoming fully operational this summer, Glaser said, in preparation for the 2019–20 academic year. Glaser praised the RCD for fostering innovative academic approaches. “One of the things that I have observed is that the RCD itself and the faculty who comprise it are … among our most exciting scholars and teachers — they are very eager to work together in areas
that you often don’t see faculty working together, and they’ve generated a lot of energy both among the faculty and with students,” he said. Even as a consortium, the RCD has had an outsize academic and social experience at Tufts, according to Tiara Bhatacharya, a senior studying international literary and visual studies. “I think that a lot of the RCD faculty and the courses that they teach have been really critical in cementing the political consciousness that a lot of Tufts students who have taken classes in the RCD … have,” Bhatacharya said. “I think one particularly important thing they give is this intellectual space to find a language to describe our own personal experiences.”
Wilson Wong, an American studies major, echoed Bhatacharya’s sentiment. “It’s [RCD] where I’ve been able to think most critically about my own identity and how I navigate the world,” Wong, a senior, said. Manjapra said that the RCD’s transition into becoming a department will improve upon Tufts’ mission of diversity and inclusion. “It is one of the strategic aims of the university to develop enhanced cultural competency in this area called diversity and inclusion,” he said. “The whole reason why RCD was established four years ago was in response to the problem of not sufficient diversity in terms of the Tufts curriculum.”
Dining workers call for better working conditions, benefits in contract DINING RALLY
continued from page 1 “A lot of the staff were scared last time,” O’Brien said in an interview after the rally. “They were afraid to speak.” In front of Ballou Hall, a lineup of speakers that included workers, students and faculty addressed the crowd. They listed the dining workers’ demands such as shorter working hours, affordable health care, and giving fulltime benefits to temporary workers. In an interview with the Daily after the rally, Vincenza Navarra, a dining worker, said that working long shifts strains her family. Navarra explained that the union is pushing the administration to shorten work schedules to avoid such strain. “We need a contract now so that we can have a better life for our families. We need less hours,” Navarra said. “We need respect, too.” During the rally, workers said that they experience harassment and verbal abuse from managers, which has had a negative impact on the working environment. O’Brien said that the working conditions differ greatly from when she joined Tufts Dining Services 30 years ago. According to O’Brien, the change is attributed to the conduct of the Dining Services managers and to understaffing, which has led to longer working hours and a strenuous working environment. She said
that Dining Services has not done enough to address the issue since she and other workers raised the issue with Dining Services management, as well as the university administration. “In the past five or six years, they don’t care about staffing. We are so understaffed — it’s ridiculous,” O’Brien said in an interview. Another issue raised by the demonstrators was the status of temporary workers. Temporary workers are not considered full-time staff and do not receive benefits like health care, vacation days and personal days, according to O’Brien. She said that there are over 40 temporary workers employed by Dining Services, some of whom have worked for Dining Services for more than a decade. Tina Lavanga, a worker at Hotung Café, addressed the crowd on behalf of temporary workers. According to Lavanga, some temporary workers work 40 or more hours per week. She said that she began working for Tufts Dining eight years ago and that she enjoys its friendly atmosphere but that she needs to have job security. Lavanga explained that every August, she waits for a letter to come in the mail that invites her to return to work. “I want to work for Tufts as a permanent part-time worker,” Lavanga said. “For my
co-workers [who] work 40 hours or more … I want them to be permanent employees.” Lavanga said that because temporary workers do the same work as permanent employees, they should receive the same benefits and treatment. Policies regarding temporary workers affect a large fraction of the dining staff. Between one-fourth and one-third of dining workers have temporary working status, according to Mike Kramer, a union representative. Other speakers at the event included students and faculty who spoke in support of the dining workers’ union. Students shared personal stories and thanked the dining workers, vowing to “support [dining workers] them for as long as [the students] are here.” First-year student Fiona Davis-Walsh said she attended the rally to push the university to adopt a fair contract. “The dining workers are an integral part of our community,” she said. “We owe it to them to show up and pressure the administration.” Rabbi Jordan Braunig, director of the Initiative for Innovative Community Building at the Granoff Family Hillel Center and parttime lecturer in Judaic Studies, addressed the crowd on behalf of Tufts’ faculty. He said supporting the dining workers’ union was a way to encourage community at Tufts.
“For community to be real, it has to encompass everyone,” Braunig said. “That means the custodial staff, the faculty, the adjunct faculty, facilities — it means everyone that puts their life and their labor into [Tufts].” To Grazia DiFabio, a dining worker, a fair union contract means holding managers accountable and ensuring higher wages and shorter working hours. “Management needs to be professional,” DiFabio said. “A fair contract means a fair schedule, a living wage and the ability to put family first.” Tufts’ Executive Director of Public Relations Patrick Collins told the Daily in an email that progress is being made during union negotiations. “The university and the union began in-person negotiations in August and have initially focused on a number of important issues such as training, safety, job postings and work assignments,” Collins said. “We continue to make progress and appreciate the engagement of all parties at the bargaining table. Negotiations for a first contract involving a new bargaining unit such as the dining services employees’ union often take a good deal of time. We are hopeful that we will be able to reach agreement as soon as possible.”
“What I’ve seen in the past three years is that Tufts takes a lot of steps to grow its student population but then doesn’t do a lot to mitigate the effects of the students that are already on campus,” she said. The body widely supported the final resolution, though senators were uneasy with some of the original resolution’s finer details. Of particular concern was the question of location. TCU Senate held an internal debate over whether or not to demand that the residence hall be built on campus to avoid further gentrifying the Medford/Somerville area. After the discussion and some brief alterations to the resolution, the body voted on the resolution, passing it unanimously. TCU Parliamentarian Sharif Hamidi, a sophomore, then introduced a series of future resolutions that, in accordance with Senate bylaws, will be voted on in two weeks by the Senate body. The respective resolutions demand that the university reach gender parity in leadership, propose a “roadmap” for the future of campus dining, call for a full divestment from fossil fuels and call for the “unwavering support” of Senior Lecturer Thomas Abowd. They will be voted on at the Dec. 2 meeting. TCU Treasurer Izzy Ma, a sophomore, then took the floor to introduce a supple-
mentary funding request. The body voted to approve a $1,270 request from Roots x SWAT to fund its event. Next, Rapfogel, a senior, updated the body on the Turkey Shuttle, which will transport students heading home for Thanksgiving break to both South Station and Boston Logan International Airport. He said that it will be running on Tuesday at 2 p.m., 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., and on Wednesday at 6 a.m., 8 a.m. and 10 a.m.. Tickets are available online. Rapfogel also said that applications for the Elections Commission will be released soon, and that the Senate will meet in the future to discuss. The Senate then moved attention to Chen for various updates. She encouraged members of the body and the greater Tufts community to donate to the Swipe it Forward program. She stressed that many individuals have an abundance of swipes, and as the semester nears closer to its end, any students who can donate to the cause should do so. Lastly, Chen and Rapfogel gave a presentation to the body on the Student Leadership Stipends initiative, a TCUfunded initiative to supplement student leaders contributing to groups who would otherwise not be able to conduct the crucial work they do.
TCU Senate voted last year to allocate $10,000 for the initiative to make student leadership positions successful and give individuals the ability to continue their work. Applications for the Student Leadership Stipends were sent to clubs on Nov. 16, in an email to TCU-recognized student organizations from Director for Campus Life Joe Golia. There will be an information session on Nov. 29 in Braker 001 to discuss further, and the deadline to apply will be on Dec. 10, according to Rapfogel. Lastly, the body discussed a future funding initiative intended to set aside grants and assistance in planning events for students seeking to host events at Tufts. Several senators who worked to create the initiative, which will be presented to the Allocations Board on Nov. 28, are hoping their funding request will provide a channel for students hoping to host events and activities for members of their community. Students who are not affiliated with a campus group will also be able to request funding, according to Class of 2022 Senator Tim Leong, one of the senators pushing the initiative. “I think part of the point is to have students that are not necessarily part of a club, to have the chance to have this money and to put on a cool event that they had the idea for,” Leong said.
TCU Senate calls on administration to prioritize housing, build new dorm
by Noah Richter
Assistant News Editor
Tufts Community Union (TCU) senators stepped into the ongoing housing debate Sunday night, unanimously passing a resolution that calls upon the university to build a new, “high-capacity” dorm at the body’s regular Sunday night meeting in the Sophia Gordon Multipurpose Room. The resolution sets a series progress benchmarks for the as-of-yet-unplanned dorm, notably that construction must begin within the next five years. It was written by Vice President Adam Rapfogel, TCU President Jacqueline Chen, Trustee Representatives sophomore Connor Goggins and senior Noah Weinflash, and Class of 2019 Senators Jonah O’Mara Schwartz and Shane Woolley, and Class of 2021 Senators Griffen Saul and Sarah Wiener. O’Mara Schwartz told the body that the university has done little to demonstrate progress on a new dorm. “[Tufts] haven’t taken active steps to proceed and start the process of building a high-capacity dorm,” he said. Chen, a senior, said that Tufts has done little to fix the housing shortage. She said that recent actions taken by the university have only made the problem worse.