Amanda Turner, special secretary for the Young Trustee process, has little more than one week to create a proposal for this year’s Young Trustee selection process.
Monday night, Turner, a junior and Black Student Alliance president, held the fourth and final forum to collect student opinion about Young Trustee selection.
After the student body voted to eliminate Duke Student Government’s position of vice president for the Inter-Community Council in September, Turner—who was selected for her position in the same election—ran the forums and met with campus leaders over the last couple weeks. Turner will present her findings Nov. 4 to DSG senators, who will then be in charge of deciding on a new process.
“I definitely think that every opinion will be included in my report,” Turner said after the forum Monday. “The people that have come [to the forums], even if they just heard about it in passing, have valuable opinions to contribute.”
Although the forums have not had strong turnouts—only two people attended Monday’s meeting and only 17 have attended the meetings in total—Turner said she has noticed that general themes and concerns have risen through all of the events. She said students are concerned about the diversity of Young Trustee candidates—most previous applicants have come from either DSG or ICC—and logistics, such as the length of previous applications.
But senior Sam Halls, who attended Monday’s meeting, questioned the point of re-evaluating the process in the first place.
“I think there are things wrong with it, but at the end of the day, if you’re happy with who comes out of it, what’s wrong?” said Halls, DSG treasurer and a former member of the ICC.
Halls also asked if people have proposed incorporating the Board of Trustees into the Young Trustee selection process. In previous years, members of DSG and ICC have selected the Young Trustee.
“The purpose of the Young Trustee is not to argue in front of students, but to be another voice on the Board,” Halls said. “And I think [the Board] would be the best to decide that.”
Turner said she has received many questions similar to Halls’, as well as a wide variety of commentaries across forums and discussions with students. Turner added that DSG members have varied opinions on the future of the selection process, as some DSG members have proposed that the process remain the same and others have suggested that the process become a student body election.
Some of the forum’s attendees noted, however, that opening the selection to the entire student body may turn the process into a popularity contest. Conversation also centered around some of DSG members’ advantages in previous selection processes.
Halls said DSG officials often have access to top administrators, who could write strong faculty recommendations for a potential Young Trustee.
“If [Executive Vice President] Tallman Trask writes a letter saying, ‘I think this person should sit on the Board,’ it will have a huge impact,” he said.
Halls added that he is concerned about the selection of this year’s Young Trustee, as changing the process has been time consuming.
“It seems like a total time crunch,” he said. “There seem to be so many things up in the air. I’m just really, really worried. At some point you need to choose something and try it.”
After the meeting, Turner said it is easy to lose focus and debate one section of the process, but DSG officials need to discuss it as a whole. She said she hopes DSG will come to a conclusion about the process, and the student body will be better informed about the Young Trustee. One of the tasks of the special secretary for the Young Trustee process is to make the process more transparent.
“If you come across a person and you ask them about the process, you have to start by describing it,” Turner said. “Hopefully, future students will get to a point where everyone knows what this process is and what this person does. But for now, it’s important to go through the basics.”
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