Sanjay Kishore, Duke Partnership for Service president-elect, will soon take up the charge of promoting civic engagement and student initiative on campus.
dPS—the umbrella organization for student-run service groups and opportunities—elected Kishore, a sophomore, as its president for the 2011-2012 academic year Feb. 12. Kishore has served on the dPS executive board for the past year.
Kishore, whose term begins in April, said he envisions Duke as a place which fosters a “culture of civic engagement and activism.”
“We know everybody on campus is active and engaged,” he said. “We want to enlist the help of the entire community.”
Current dPS President Becky Agostino, a senior, said she is excited about what is in store for dPS under Kishore’s leadership.
“[We] expanded quite quickly, and it has been a challenge to make sure the organization feels like a cohesive body,” she said. “I think he’ll do a fantastic job of making dPS a more cohesive organization and strengthening connections with other organizations.”
Kishore has been active with dPS since his freshman year, when he served as a dPS representative to Alspaugh’s House Council. At the end of last Spring, he and sophomore Chris Brown became co-chairs of dPS Connect, a program which unites freshmen interested in civic engagement.
“[Kishore] has a very solid understanding of the mission of dPS,” Brown said. “He has a great vision for the direction of the program.”
Brown also noted the struggles of dPS over the past year, including controversy about the group’s role in allocating funds to student groups and confusion about its purpose. Brown said he hopes dPS will finally be able “to take hold on campus,” adding that the organization has made significant strides under Agostino and that he believes this will continue under Kishore.
Kishore said dPS’s potential is what inspired him to run for president.
“It’s a young organization so I thought it would be a unique opportunity to spread a vision of activism,” he said.
In his quest to augment Duke’s civic engagement culture, Kishore added that he plans to utilize creative programming. Some possibilities include sponsoring a conference with alumni involved in activism or creating a narrative history of civic engagement at Duke, he said.
This year, Kishore was the only person to apply for the position, Agostino said. dPS executive board members were originally considering a number of interested candidates, but all of them stepped down at the last minute for personal reasons or because they were considering other leadership positions on campus, she said.
Regardless, Kishore’s experience and consistent commitment to dPS make him especially qualified for the position, Agostino noted.
“He has a really strong vision and good sense of how he’ll manage the challenges in the coming year,” she said.
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