DSGRU seeks concrete results in second year

The Duke Student Government Research Unit is looking to improve its reputation among the administration and the student body alike during its second year.

Created a year ago under the auspices of then-DSG Executive Vice President Abhi Sanka, a senior, DSGRU uses quantitative data to tackle a number of campus questions proposed by the DSG Senate. During its first year of operation, DSGRU’s contributions were limited as its work was temporarily halted by administrators over data confidentiality concerns. Under the leadership of DSG Executive Vice President John Guarco, a junior, and DSGRU Co-Directors Julio Cesar, a senior, and Ethan Levine, a junior, DSGRU will attempt to improve upon the basic framework established last year.

“Last year was about starting something,” Cesar said. “This year you will be able to measure its effectiveness. You will see it.”

The unit met a number of challenges in establishing itself in its first year. As a new organization, DSGRU needed to establish connections with the administration and with faculty. Sanka credits former DSGRU director Kshipra Hemal, a senior, for building “a lot of relationships with campus stakeholders, the relevant administrators and relevant heads of departments.”

“They’ve gotten to know people and become acquainted with the restrictions,” Director of Institutional Research David Jamieson-Drake, whose office works with DSGRU in conducting research, said. “My expectation is that it should go more smoothly this year because they’ve learned their way around.”

A few months into its creation, administrators temporarily halted the unit’s work after they concerns about the legality and confidentiality of the data being collected. Although DSGRU was eventually given the green light to proceed, the issues continue to influence the unit’s operations.

“It’s a difficult process acquiring data, especially when there is no precedent for students seeking data for research like this,” Guarco explained. “We hope that in the future there’s a stronger standard and means of acquiring data and statistics from our school in order to improve the undergraduate student experience.”

Cesar similarly highlighted the need for DSGRU to establish credibility with the administration on the same topics that sidelined the unit a year ago.

“The challenge is still the same—to build trust within Duke administrations so that they feel this is a body where they will take the data and they will treat it with discretion, respect, and at the same time work in the best interest of the Duke student body,” Cesar said.

While DSGRU continues to look for answers to its challenges, it will also attempt to find a good organizational structure. On a foundational level, “we are going to make it more formalized and more structured,” Levine said. DSGRU is also looking to make specific changes to the way it operates.

“We definitely took on too many projects,” Hemal said, reflecting on last year, when the research unit took on six separate questions in a semester. The unit will look to rectify this by taking on fewer questions, explained Hemal, who is advising DSGRU this year.

That way, DSGRU can “focus or two or three very large and pressing campus issues and to investigate and build on evidence,” Sanka said.

Last year, DSGRU was not able to put together a team of investigators until October because it was just getting off the ground. This year, the process is occurring in September, but Guarco said that he isn’t satisfied with that.

“My vision is one where at the beginning of next year, we have a full team of investigators ready to get to work,” he said. “I would like to have an application process in the Spring so that we ensure no spots are empty in this upcoming year.”

DSGRU also hopes to implement a more direct method of crowdsourcing research questions. This past year, Sanka used the “Fix My Campus” Facebook page to conduct a poll, with predetermined research topics, measuring which ones Duke students were most interested in the unit pursuing.

This year, DSGRU looks to take this one step further by giving the students a way to ask questions.

“Every year, we take in the best of the best around the world in terms of students. It’s not just the DSG Senate, we have a lot of students that are really smart and can ask really good questions,” Cesar said. “So why limit the process to just the DSG Senate when we have 6,000 students that are the best of best at what they do?”

The second year is an important one for DSGRU in terms of its long-term reputation. Levine said that he hopes this year can serve as a model for how the unit will be run in the future.

“Expectations are high,” Cesar added. “This is the first trial run and if we don’t show results, then we’re not going to have support going forward.”