Elections, committee meetings and orientations will culminate this evening when the ninth Duke Student Government legislature convenes at its first official session of the academic year.
Following the meeting, President Nan Keohane will address both the DSG legislature and members of the Graduate and Professional Student Council, and answer questions of the two organizations.
"We've never had the president come to a GPSC meeting before," said Rob Saunders, president of GPSC. "We've never had a joint meeting [with DSG] either."
Saunders said he expects Keohane to speak about her goals for the year, as well as DSG and GPSC concerns. For graduate and professional students, Saunders said he expects those issues to include parking and transportation, child and health care, and interschool academic collaboration.
DSG Executive Vice President Justin Ford said committees on DSG and GPSC have already provided questions to Keohane, which she has agreed to answer.
"It's the first time in my recent memory that she's spoken to DSG as an official body," Ford said.
He added that DSG members will probably ask for Keohane's opinions on the University's student life, intellectual environment and facilities--questions he said only the president can answer.
The meeting at 8 p.m. at the Sanford Institute of Public Policy is open to all students, though only members of DSG and GPSC will get to ask questions.
Saunders said he and DSG President Joshua Jean-Baptiste modeled their plans for Keohane's speech after the system at Stanford University, whose student governments meet with their president three times a year.
"We thought it would be a nice show of cooperation between the two bodies," Saunders said. "Having the president there is also a good time when we can talk about some of the overarching student issues."
By meeting with GPSC, Jean-Baptiste said he also hopes to have more influence with the administration. "That's one of the other prime initiatives, to strengthen the student voice by bringing student groups together," he said.
If the meeting is successful, Jean-Baptiste said, he hopes the president's presentation to the student governments will become a tradition.
Prior to their joint session with GPSC, DSG legislators will hear Head Line Monitor Jeremy Morgan introduce the undergraduate admissions policy for basketball games this season.
Morgan pointed to two specific changes in the process this year--having only one day between the two tenting periods and a more deliberate monitoring system for walk-up games.
Duke students will pitch tents in Krzyzewskiville to obtain tickets for the two most popular men's basketball games--against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Maryland.
Last year, a 46-day interval between the games against UNC and Maryland clearly distinguished the two tenting seasons.
This year, however, "the Carolina and Maryland games are two weeks apart... so there's pretty much going to be one tenting season," Morgan said.
Although the policy says that the two tenting periods will be completely separate, it also says that registration for the Feb. 19 Maryland game will begin Feb. 6--one day after the Carolina game Feb. 5.
For walk-up games, Morgan said his policy will be stricter than past policies. "There's been a lot of problems with cutting in those games," he said. "It's been a free-for-all." To prevent cutting, Morgan said monitors will observe the lines and enforce rules when a "significant" number of people have arrived.
Other items on DSG's agenda include the approval of both at-large legislators and cabinet appointees.
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