Third-year law student James McDonald was elected Duke's newest Graduate Young Trustee at the Graduate and Professional Student Council's general assembly meeting Tuesday night.
"It was a wonderful feeling to find out that I had been chosen," McDonald later told The Chronicle. "I was very honored. And it was humbling because both Gautham [Pandiyan] and Ariana [Sutton-Greir] are incredibly good representatives of Duke, and I think it must have been a tough election."
Describing himself as a candidate to the general assembly, McDonald likened his role as a Young Trustee to the various positions he played as a college basketball player at Bowdoin College.
"My college basketball coach once told me I wasted 15 years of my life playing basketball," he said. "But in those 15 years, I learned the answer to the question of what role a Young Trustee needs to play."
Standing 6 feet 10 inches tall in front of the general assembly, McDonald explained that Duke needs a Young Trustee who will play both defense and offense. In playing defense, the Young Trustee must represent the interests of graduate and professional students to the Board of Trustees, he said.
"With the economy in a recession and the endowment down, everyone can see that Duke will be making cuts in the coming years," McDonald said. "We need a Young Trustee who is going to be playing defense for graduate and professional students. I will ask the tough questions. I will ask, what will this do for graduate and professional students? We need to tell the Trustees why cutbacks in one of our programs would be a setback for the entire University."
McDonald later told The Chronicle that he thinks his comments on the economy helped his candidacy at a time when many graduate and professional students are worried about finding jobs after graduation.
He added that playing offense is equally important as a Young Trustee. In playing offense, he said he hopes to focus on developing graduate career services at the Duke University Career Center, starting with counseling services.
"I think we can play offense, defense, and see a better Duke for all of us," he said.
In other business:
Laura Barnard, a second-year divinity school student and a first-year clinical psychology Ph.D. student, brought a safety concern to the general assembly's attention. She told students about a man who has come to approximately 10 graduate students' apartments claiming that he is locked out of his car and his phone is dead. After entering graduate students' homes and asking to use their phones, the man then requests money. If he is met with any resistance, he takes out a gun, she said. Barnard told the assembly to be wary of this situation and to pass the message along to their constituents.
It is unclear when the incidents occurred or if they were reported to police. They do not appear on the past week's Durham Police Department weekly crime logs.
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