After debating for almost two hours on the Young Trustee selection process at Duke Student Government’s meeting Wednesday night, DSG members will meet later in the semester to continue the discussion.
Members will hold a special session after Thanksgiving break in which discussions will start at “square one,” Executive Vice President Gregory Morrison, a junior, said after the meeting.
“This bill has failed,” Morrison said. “There is no more action to be taken on this bill during this session. We pretty much have to recess because there is nothing else for us to do.”
During the nearly three-hour meeting, senators motioned to make a variety of amendments and replace other amendments, but ultimately none of the motions came to fruition. Morrison said discussions and amendments from last night and from previous meetings will be considered before the special session Nov. 30.
Senior Danny Lewin, a former Chronicle columnist, motioned to replace an amendment passed at last week’s meeting that called for a general body election to select the Young Trustee. His proposed amendment would allow six at-large representatives of the Young Trustee Nominating Committee, six representatives of student groups and the DSG Senate to collectively select the Young Trustee. Senators also drafted an amendment that would allow the three groups to make a non-binding selection of the Young Trustee and then have the student body vote on DSG’s recommendation.
Athletics and Campus Services Senator Ben Bergmann, a junior, said he supports the inclusion of a general body election in the selection process.
“I think there is considerably more bias in this room about who the Young Trustee should be... than there is out there,” Bergmann said.
Nothing concrete came out of the meeting, however.
Senators also voted on overruling a veto by DSG President Awa Nur, a senior, of a proposal for a new Young Trustee selection process, but failed to reach a two-thirds majority.
“The debate, negotiations and compromises are integral to an open and democratic process,” Morrison said. “And so the fact that this is taking some time is frustrating, yes, but in the end it will leave us with a much better outcome because all of the debate we have had.”
But junior Will Passo, vice president for Durham and regional affairs and co-author of the general election amendment with sophomore Pete Schork, vice president for athletics and campus services, said in an interview that senators did not prepare for the meeting. He said the senators did not come to a consensus because of their lack of preparation.
“[The senators’] thought process was only taking place on the Senate floor instead of both on the Senate floor and whatever,” Passo said. “That’s why it got crazy. I think it shows the incompetence of the DSG Senate and I think that proves one of our points that we want to have a general body election, because senators a lot of the time don’t do their homework. This was awful today.”
Morrison said he will present senators with two competing bills after break—one that will be similar to the bill passed last week and one that will be similar to the proposal junior Amanda Turner, special secretary for the Young Trustee process and president of the Black Student Alliance, submitted Nov. 4.
Morrison added that senators must decide on the Young Trustee selection process and elect members to the Young Trustee Nominating Committee by Dec. 2—the deadline set by the Board of Trustees. Morrison said he will hold senators in the special session until they reach a resolution, and senators will elect members to the nominating committee during the regularly-scheduled Dec. 2 meeting.
In other business:
Three members of the International Association presented a plan for DSG to put together a committee to create a plan for a need-blind admissions policy for international students. Not having such a policy for international students who apply for aid puts them at a disadvantage, members said, adding that other top universities have instituted need-blind international admissions policies. DSG accepted the memo.
DSG members also passed a resolution urging the administration to either reverse its decision to dismiss two staff members of the Multicultural Center or hire new staff members to fill those empty spots. Another resolution established a resident assistant basketball lottery that will allow five randomly selected RAs to attend each game, and a third asked administrators to allocate space for a center for student activism in the future.
Senators also voted to recognize the student groups Pakistanis at Duke and DreamCorp at Duke and approved the Student Organization Finance Committee’s allocation of $1,991.50 for the Duke Dance Marathon. They also allocated funds for today’s Duke-Durham Hunger Alliance Meal Swap.
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