In the two days before classes began, the residential group assessment committee was hard at work.
RGAC members and a several campus leaders have created a new menu of sections for selective living groups to choose from. Committee members also revised the rubric that will be used to evaluate selective living groups in the future. The new section menu will be released Thursday.
“You will see similarities but very substantive changes as well,” said Campus Council President Stephen Temple, a junior.
Leaders from Campus Council, the Interfraternity Council and Selective House Council along with Jen Frank, assistant director of accommodations for Residence Life and Housing Services, holding a meeting Monday to revise the original RGAC menu. The decision to revise was the result of concern from IFC and SHC.
“Our solution sticks to the thought process behind the original menu but also addresses concerns of specific groups,” said Campus Council Vice President Alex Reese, a junior.
Some of these concerns included a lack of common rooms and the placement of SLGs on third and fourth floors.
Temple declined to release the new menu Tuesday, but members said the changes allow groups more flexibility and provide more options for groups.
“A group picking last shouldn’t be pigeonholed into the last available section,” said [SHC] President Kait Nagi, a senior. “Now, there are multiple options.”
Contrary to students’ demands and administrators’ promises of more open RGAC forums, both Monday and Tuesday’s meetings were closed.
Tuesday’s meeting was closed “strictly for feasibility,” Temple said.
The new menu takes into account the concerns of independents.
“We didn’t want to have pockets of isolated independents—also referred to as “orphan residents”— and we didn’t want to load quads with groups and skew the percentages of affiliated versus unaffiliated,” Reese said.
Joe Gonzalez, associate dean for residential life was also at the Tuesday meeting, which produced a proposal that will eventually be evaluated by the greater Duke community, he said.
Before winter break, groups like IFC and SHC expressed concerns about unclear expectations and inconsistent scoring practices in the RGAC process.
Revisions made Tuesday focused on the rubric, but scoring practices will be addressed at future meetings, Reese said.
“Some things are similar, like damages and cleaning charges, but some things are different,” said Campus Council Representative Alyssa Dack, a senior. “The new rubric will lay guidelines, reduce subjectivity, and students on the [RGAC] panel will know the standards.”
The new rubric will reduce limitations on groups and encourage more quality programming.
“The rubric has clear score ranges and really details what is expected. I don’t see how anyone could get confused,” Nagi said.
To narrow the communication gap, RGAC plans to publish a handbook about the process.
Sororities were not represented at the Monday and Tuesday meetings. The prospect of sorority involvement will be on the agenda at upcoming Campus Council meetings, Temple said.
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