Classes might have been canceled on Wednesday, but not even a severe weather alert or eight inches of snow stopped the Duke Student Government Senate from completing this week's orders of business.
Due to the inclement weather conditions, the senators were unable to hold their regular Wednesday night meeting on campus. Using Google Hangout, emails and online forms, the Senate passed two of the rules changes they discussed at their last meeting—a DSG bylaw change affecting head line monitors and the updates to Krzyzewskiville rules for this year.
“I wanted to have Senate conduct business tonight because, having had a week to think about K-ville, now is the time for Senators to register their discontent,” wrote Senate President Pro Tempore Jackson Dellinger, a junior, in an email.
The Senate saw no new business on Wednesday, instead restricting their focus to the two rules changes. At last week's meeting, they did the first reading of the bylaw change and were given an unofficial presentation of the tenting rule changes for this year by the head line monitors.
Although presentation time for both items on Wednesday's agenda was ceded, senators were still able to ask questions and offer speeches through a Hangout. He said that he was not surprised that no dissent was raised, as there were no objections or negative speeches about either change at last week's meeting.
Because he did not see any negative responses, Dellinger declared the two pieces of legislation passed by unanimous consent, meaning that they were not taken to a vote.
First-year Rahul Krishnaswamy, senator for academic affairs, was absent from DSG's Jan. 10 meeting because he was sick.
Although the bylaw changes and the Powerpoint slides from the presentation about the tenting rules are accessible in DSG's GoogleDrive, Krishnaswamy noted that members who missed the unofficial presentation of the tenting rules or first reading of the bylaw did not have the background information available from last week's presentation
"I thought it was very effective, especially the way that we could reach a decision without even being in the Senate. But, I would have appreciated on the GoogleDoc form where we were supposed to vote have some background information," he said. "On the form, it was pretty much your name, your netID and how you voted. So I would have appreciated just a quick summary of what we had discussed, so if people had forgotten or if people were not there they would have some background information."
The amendment to the DSG bylaw regarding head line monitors changes Article Nine, Section B of the bylaw to read: “The Head Line Monitor shall present the Tenting and Walk-up Line Policy. Starting with the Academic Year 2018–2019, this aforementioned presentation shall occur no later than the last DSG meeting November.”
Co-Head Line Monitors David Duquette and Sara Constand, both seniors, presented the tenting policy revisions at last week’s meeting. The updates set the transition dates for this year's tenting schedule and alter the hours that are considered "night." The presenters noted that the policy was changed from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. from Sunday to Tuesday and 2:30 a.m. to 7 a.m. from Wednesday to Saturday to not “’incentivize going out nights but not study nights.”
There is also a new wellness initiative, including a Wellness Contract for tenters, “party monitor” training for each line monitor and wellness marketing which “promotes tenter wellness and LDOC drinking rules.”
Other featured changes consist of tents having to be store bought and flame retardant, the re-registering of those “bumped” from the Walk Up Line, submitting all tenting members to submit their netIDs to create a tent roster and the rejection of “digital evidence” as “proof of location” in the instance of “a missed check.”
“The full and official text [of the 2018 tenting policy update] in its entirety will be posted on the DSG page shortly after its approval,” Dellinger wrote.
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Stefanie Pousoulides is The Chronicle's Investigations Editor. A senior from Akron, Ohio, Stefanie is double majoring in political science and international comparative studies and serves as a Senior Editor of The Muse Magazine, Duke's feminist magazine. She is also a former co-Editor-in-Chief of The Muse Magazine and a former reporting intern at PolitiFact in Washington, D.C.