Black Student Alliance: DSG endorsements

The Central Committee of the Black Student Alliance would like to share the following thoughts regarding the upcoming Duke Student Government elections:

For the office of President, we endorse FELIX LI. Unlike most of his opponents, we believe that Li is willing and able, based on his past leadership experience, to effectively address and confront difficult issues. His agenda extends beyond e-print and kegs, and we are confident that if elected, he will put forth an agenda of substance. Li has demonstrated a willingness to tackle challenging issues in a way that emphasizes communication and compromise, and so we believe that he would be effective in leading our student body.

For the office of Executive Vice President we endorse DAMJAN DENOBLE. Despite his inexperience with DSG, we believe that Denoble's past leadership and organization in other areas of campus life, for instance in Campus Council and Sudan Relief efforts, make him well equipped to manage DSG. Moreover, we hope that his inexperience with DSG will provide the fresh and innovative thinking.

For the VP of Community Interaction we endorse DANIEL BOWES. Based on Bowes' leadership and willingness to go beyond the ordinary, we are confident that he will be able to interact with members of the Duke and Durham community in a way that is mutually beneficial, as well as lead an ICC that is constructive and actually valuable to the community.

For the Office of VP of Athletic and Campus Services we endorse DAVID SNIDER. Armed with an impressive track record regarding results, Snider has a reasonable amount of ideas that he would like to implement. His emphasis on having fewer, feasible ideas, instead of many proposed changes, makes us confident that these promises are not idle.

For the office of VP of Academic Affairs we endorse no one. Both candidates were ill-prepared to address issues affecting many students, such as the prescence of minority and women faculty in underrepresented areas. Instead, they focused on expanding space for saving work on the Duke network and a system to avoid having to lug books across campus. The insignificance of these issues is the basis for our lack of confidence in either candidate.

For the office of VP of Student Affairs we endorse no one. While several of the candidates had lackluster ideas for the position, we felt that a few of the candidates for this office were far too ambitious is goal-setting, anticipating that they had already spread themselves too thin to do any one thing well. We were less than impressed with the remaining candidates' agendas, noting that it was unlikely anything of substance would come from their agendas.

It is with full confidence that the Central Committee of the Black Student Alliance makes these recommendations and we hope that these endorsements assist in your decision making during the upcoming DSG election.