Young Trustee finalists present platforms to DSG

The Duke Student Government Senate heard from Young Trustee candidates during its meeting Wednesday.

The three candidates—Wills Rooney, Max Schreiber and Jamal Edwards, all seniors—presented their platforms to the Senate and answered questions. Rooney described proposed changes to Duke’s curriculum, Schreiber advocated for the current housing model and discussed issues of free expression and Edwards spoke about how Duke could change its image both on campus and nationally.

In his presentation to the Senate, Rooney said that he would advocate for more integrated curriculum options that would help Duke students find common perspectives on fundamental issues.

“Duke’s curriculum is not all that unified, not all that integrated,” Rooney said. “It really needs to address the serious life questions of purpose and meaning that are embedded in every human heart.”

Rooney said that, if elected, he would push for an organized set of courses that deal with issues such as religion, ethics and virtues. Although Rooney said that he did not think that his proposed set of courses should be required, he argued that having such courses offered as a major, minor or certificate would lead more students to tackle fundamental life questions during their time at Duke.

He also discussed transparency in the administration and on the Board of Trustees. Rooney argued that students do not currently feel that administrators are responsive to their concerns and said that he would push to change that if elected to the Board of Trustees.

“Most students feel that the administration doesn’t necessarily care all that much about them,” Rooney said.

Schreiber discussed his advocacy for preserving the current housing model and for maintaining open expression on campus. He said that his range of experiences both at Duke and in Durham allowed him to understand how the University interacts with its surroundings and to “get the pulse of the student body.”

Schreiber said that he would fight any changes to the current housing model.

“If a replacement for the housing model comes up, to implement a residential college model, I will fight tooth and nail to ensure that doesn’t happen,” he said. “Students run social life better than faculty and [residence coordinators] and [resident assistants].”

Schreiber also said that he would oppose any attempt to create rules against offensive speech on campus. He called out DSG for promoting the idea of an “intolerance clause” in the Duke Community Standard.

“What that would mean is if I say something and it offends somebody else, they can report me to Student Conduct and I can be sanctioned simply for offending someone,” Schreiber said.

Junior Tara Bansal, vice president for academic affairs, pointed out that because Schreiber wants to serve on the Board’s Business and Finance Committee if elected, neither the housing model nor speech issues would be in his committee’s purview.

Schreiber also criticized the University’s decision to fund Duke Kunshan University rather than invest in things that are more relevant to undergraduates on Duke’s main campus. He said that he would seek to change the University’s priorities if he was selected to serve on the Business and Finance Committee.

“We just spent $100 million on a campus in China that 13 undergraduates went to," Schreiber said.  "Meanwhile at Stanford, if your family earns $125,000 or less a year, you go for free.”

Several senators disputed Schreiber’s figure of $100 million as the cost of DKU. In an email after the meeting, Schreiber cited articles stating that Duke has committed tens of millions of dollars to DKU, and argued that DKU’s operating costs are in “the high single or low teen million dollar range.”

Edwards discussed his wide-ranging experiences and said that, if elected, he would focus on improving the “Duke brand” to appeal to a wider range of potential students.

“I think the thing that’s strategic for us to do is to consider what we think of when we think of the name ‘Duke,’ and to do that at levels,” Edwards said. “First generation and low income students [for example], what are the things that they think of when they think of the ‘Duke Brand?’”

He added that his long term vision was for other schools to look to Duke for innovative ideas.

“Instead of people constantly saying, ‘What is Harvard doing?’ or ‘What is Stanford doing?’ or ‘They just had this program and we should do it here,’ I’d like to actually do the reverse of that,” Edwards explained. “Students should be saying ‘Wow, did you just see the new initiative that Duke is doing,’ and using us as an institutional example.”

Edwards also touched on DKU and said that he was concerned about the “controversial feedback” from students who had spent time there.

“I think we need to better work on how we’re going to brand that and better give it the spirit and essence of Duke,” Edwards said.

In other business:

The Senate heard a petition from students to keep Grace’s Café open. Although several senators expressed sympathy for the petitioners, they said that DSG was not the right body to help keep the venue open and directed them to the Duke Undergraduate Student Dining Advisory Committee.

The Senate discussed proposed changes to Duke’s curriculum, including the possibility of allowing freshmen to take some of their classes pass/fail. Although most senators agreed that allowing freshmen to take all of their first semester classes pass/fail was not a good idea, many were supportive of letting freshmen take some classes pass/fail.

The Senate approved the Student Organization Finance Committee's decision to allocate money for the Asian Students Association’s Lunar New Year Program and for duArts programs.

The Senate approved late reimbursements for the Chess Club but voted against giving the Consulting Club reimbursements for a web domain that it had purchased in November but did not submit for reimbursement until January.

Executive Vice President John Guarco, a junior, presented an amendment to the election statute that would allow candidates to be reimbursed if their posters on campus were taken down due to “malicious intent.” Several senators raised questions about how malicious intent could be defined and whether candidates should be reimbursed if their posters were taken down by custodial staff.

Richard Biever, chief information security officer for the University, spoke about a new encrypted network, called DukeBlue, that the University is rolling out to make internet connections more secure.