Vote Simpson for Student Life VP

Both candidates for the position of Duke Student Government vice president for student life—Ebonie Simpson, a junior, and Michael Habashi, a sophomore—are personable, well spoken and have a good grasp of the social issues that affect students.

We endorse Simpson for the position of vice president for student life because she has more experience under her belt and a skill set more specifically tailored to student life.

Simpson’s platform is solid and obviously informed by her diverse experiences as a resident assistant, her leadership within the Black Student Alliance, her work with the Women’s Center and her two terms as a DSG senator. As a senior next year, Simpson will have the knowledge from previous committees and the experience in management roles required to lead the student life committee.

Habashi demonstrated a broad knowledge of the position and seemed to be focused on results. But he attributed most of his leadership experience to founding and chairing the DSG commission that produced a campus survey this semester—the value of which is still unclear.

Both candidates are interested in collecting and communicating student opinion, but Simpson’s idea to create action-based focus groups comprised of student life senators and student leaders who are invested in these issues seems to be a more substantive way to forward campus dialogue and, as the name implies, encourage action on behalf of students. Campus-wide surveys, like the one championed by Habashi, while useful in gauging attitudes and opinions, do not produce meaningful answers about how to fix the problems themselves.

That said, we suggest that Simpson limit the number of action-based focus groups she plans to form and instead focus on instituting a few productive and efficient groups. The knowledge gained from these specialized action-based focus groups can then be used not to limit or compartmentalize thinking about student life at Duke, but to influence our thinking about the different aspects of student life as a whole. We also appreciated Simpson’s desire to speak with students rather than go straight to administrators.

Simpson and Habashi would both benefit from more focused goals and more concrete ideas for change. Although the scope of this position is wide-ranging, a concentrated effort to address key issues will produce better results than trying to address every campus culture issue within one year.

Simpson, for example, writes in her platform that she wants to “work with CAPS to find creative ways to allow students to be served more frequently with less waiting,” but does not outline how she intends to do this. At the same time Habashi wants to “work to secure more facilities for performing arts groups and club sports,” but does not offer any suggestions on tackling this issue.