Special Secretary for the Young Trustee process Amanda Turner submitted her proposal for reforming the Young Trustee selection process and a draft of the new Young Trustee by-law to Duke Student Government Wednesday.
Turner, a junior and president of the Black Student Alliance, presented the results of her study of the Young Trustee selection process and her draft of a new Young Trustee by-law to the DSG senate. The draft was not open to debate at this meeting, rather the purpose was to inform Senators and students who chose to attend the meeting of outcome of Turner’s inquiry.
“When asked the question directly everyone from administrators to students to current Young Trustees has said no, the current Young Trustee Process is not broken,” Turner wrote in her Young Trustee Process Report.
Still, Turner’s proposal made several suggestions for changes.
Turner’s draft (see "Related Files" to the right of this article) proposed several changes to the Young Trustee Nominating Committee, which selects the Young Trustee. Previously, the selection committee was composed of 10 DSG and 10 Inter-Community Council members. Turner’s draft would expand the committee to include 18 members—six members from DSG, six at-large members selected by a DSG selection committee through a publicized application and interview process and six members chosen from the presidents of campus organizations by an ICC committee. The nominating committee would be selected before Winter break.
In an effort to reduce conflicts of interest, anyone who runs for the Young Trustee position cannot serve on the YTNC, according to Turner’s draft. Also under Turner’s plan, the Special Secretary for the Young Trustee process would serve as the chair of the YTNC in order to ensure that the process is conducted in a fair manner.
Applications for Young Trustee are tentatively due before the end of the second week of the Spring semester. The nominating committee would then review the applications and narrow the number of candidates to eight semifinalists, then three finalists. Turner’s draft gives the YTNC and DSG equal votes in the final selection of the Young Trustee and DSG representatives on the nominating committee would vote with the YTNC.
Turner said her inquiry revealed that one of the primary concerns about the Young Trustee selection process is that it tends to favor candidates who currently hold leadership positions.
“Most students agreed that student government leaders, while they are not the only people on campus that demonstrate leadership and a commitment to making Duke a better place, have a highly visible positional qualification for the role that other applicants do not and cannot show,” Turner wrote in her report. “Therefore, there is a need to fix the perception that positional leadership is all one needs to run for Young Trustee successfully.”
Turner noted in her report that the Young Trustee should bring an understanding of the Duke experience and the concerns of undergraduates to the Board through his or her service, and that this knowledge is not limited to organization leaders.
“The most important thing to do is to look outside of the positional leadership,” Turner said in an interview.
Turner’s report also suggested that a special secretary be elected every year to review the Young Trustee process.
Junior Gregory Morrison, the executive vice president of DSG, said he thinks Turner has done a good job in conducting her inquiry.
“It’s been a very open process that’s run with integrity,” he said. “Her report is a good thing for the student body to consider.”
Next week, DSG will hold an open debate about Turner’s proposals.
In other business:
DSG also considered transparency issues with the quality of DukeEngage programs. Lisa Ma, a senior and former editorial page editor at The Chronicle, raised concerns that the Trinidad and Tabago trip is not meeting DukeEngage’s stated mission. To address this problem, Senior Spencer Eldred, vice president for student affairs proposed a plan to create and monitor a feedback program that would allow students to review past DukeEngage programs and help students select which program to apply to—like its new CourseRanks site.
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