The Tufts Daily THE
INDEPENDENT
STUDENT
NEWSPAPER
OF
TUFTS
UNIVERSITY
E S T. 1 9 8 0
Medford/Somerville, Mass.
Thursday, April 25, 2024
VOLUME LXXXVII, ISSUE 11
UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY
‘Site of solidarity’: Students set up encampment for Palestine on Academic Quad
TCU Senate budgets over $2.9 million to campus organizations
Estelle Anderson and Julieta Grané
Anna Fattaey
University News Editor
Executive Investigative Editor and Managing Editor
Amid a national wave of encampments for Palestine on college campuses, Tufts students have set up tents on the Academic Quad to demand that Tufts divest from Israel and that charges against student protesters across the country be dropped. Protesters first put up the tents on April 7 but temporarily took them down on April 17, in order to focus on a separate demonstration where they installed an “Apartheid Wall” on President’s Lawn. Students rebuilt the tents on Sunday evening after the arrest and suspension of more than 100 Columbia University students at their encampment over the weekend. “In this moment of massive mobilization, we think it’s especially important to take up space
ESTELLE ANDERSON / THE TUFTS DAILY
Tents at the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on the Academic Quad are pictured. on campus,” one student at the encampment said. “[We think it’s important to] provide a hub for organizing and engagement where people can plug into the ongoing efforts and find out what they can do that will be meaningful in solidarity.”
Students have been sleeping in the tents overnight, taking shifts throughout the day to ensure that there are people stationed there at all hours. At the moment, they plan to keep see TENTS, page 3
LOCAL
H Mart to open in Davis Square Dhruvii Mehta and Carly Cohen Staff Writer and University News Editor
A new branch of the beloved Asian supermarket H Mart is expected to open in Davis Square, according to employees of company locations in both Burlington and Cambridge. One worker told the Daily over the phone that although the opening has been continuously delayed, she believes its doors will open this summer. The store will open at 240 Elm St., according to an LLC filing made by H Mart CEO Il Yeon Kwon, to the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in June of last year. This property was previously home to the bfresh grocery store before it closed in October 2023 due to an inability to meet financial expectations. The space has remained vacant since. H Mart did not respond to the Daily’s request for comment, nor did the building owner for 240 Elm St. Famous for selling authentic Korean goods, H Mart’s opening in
MATTHEW SAGE / THE TUFTS DAILY
240 Elm St., the former home of bfresh and the future location of H Mart, is pictured on a sunny afternoon. Davis Square is an exciting prospect for many in the Tufts community. Jules Lee, secretary of the Korean Student Association, talked about her excitement about the potential opening. “I grew up in New Jersey, and there’s a really big Korean community … so H Mart was the go-to grocery store that my parents and I always went to grow-
ing up as a kid,” she said. “It’s really cool having H Mart so close to us … because it reminds me of my family and the food that we eat.” She explained the greater impact that the opening would have on the Tufts and Somerville communities. see HMART, page 3
The Tufts Community Union Senate finalized next school year’s student organization budget of over $2.9 million, approving it at its most recent meeting on Sunday. The 2024–25 academic year’s budget will rise 3.7% over this year’s budget of $2,843,373. According to TCU Treasurer Dhruv Sampat, close to $2.7 million is expected to be raised by the student activity fee — the mandatory $396 expenditure included in students’ tuition. The remaining difference will be pulled from TCU’s surplus funding, bolstered by the COVID-19 pandemic that left on-campus student activities temporarily paused. Sampat spoke to the Daily about his goals in this budgeting cycle. “My aim in going into this session was to essentially take money away from more established and bigger organizations where we can,” Sampat said. “To not squeeze them or force them to cut down on their things, but essentially be very mindful and allocate more money to smaller organizations that really need it.” Sampat also shared that a large priority of his was to increase funding for student services and accessibility. The Student Support Fund, which covers the costs of activities for students under financial aid, was increased from $20,000 to $35,000. Additionally, club sports saw a $15,000 increase in order to reduce financial barriers in participating in club sports. Funding for student organizations was organized into “councils,” divided by groups’ different focuses, such as pre-professional, performance or religious organizations. Council 1, focused on cultural groups, is chaired by Senator Emily Childs. The council will see a 21% increase in its budget, rising from last year’s $156,504 to $190,000. Sampat justified the increase by sharing that many cultural clubs were in “desperate need of money” in order to build a community. Council 3, chaired by Senator Rhoda Edwards, is the media council. This council covers all publications funded by the 12 SPORTS
4 FEATURES
6 ARTS & POP CULTURE
9 OPINION
Farmers farm for fruitful future
Noticing new noises at Newport Jazz
Carm should cater carbs
Lacrosse ladies lock in
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Senate as well as other media-related clubs. The council’s budget cap was reduced from last year’s $116,574 to $104,226 — an 11% decrease. According to Edwards, this decrease is aimed at preventing excessive waste from printed copies and pivoting towards online publication. The Tufts Observer, the university’s oldest publication, will have a $20,000 budget next year, $7,000 less than the original budget the group requested. According to the Observer’s Treasurer William Zhuang, the publication was told that its printing budget was cut because too many copies of the magazine were not picked up every publication cycle. In the last year, the Observer has gone from printing five issues a semester to just four, and the Senate has asked the publication to reduce the number of printed copies by 50%. “Everyone who works at the Observer believes that we have a pretty special space and niche on campus,” Zhuang said. “This sort of very aggressive approach to decreasing our budget is destructive to our club morale a little bit, but also just makes us concerned for the future.” Zhuang also believes that the budget cut creates unnecessary competition between campus publications fighting for TCU funding. “It sort of creates this atmosphere where we feel like we’re competing against these other publications for these crumbs of money,” he said. Sampat also spoke on the Observer’s budget cut. “The effort here was not to try and cut funding for the Observer. … It was to be more efficient with how we’re allocating resources,” Sampat said. “If we can take money from an organization that doesn’t need it as much, we can give it to small organizations.” Sampat shared that smaller publications did see budget increases; for example, Future Histories and the Current both saw increases between 30% and 40%. The religious, performance, pre-professional and political advocacy councils all saw increassee BUDGET, page 3 News Features Arts & Pop Culture Fun & Games Opinion Sports
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