Next Tuesday, the student body will elect a new Duke Student Government president, executive vice president and Student Organization and Funding Committee chair. The Chronicle's Lincoln Richards sat down with SOFC chair candidate Nikhil Gavai, a junior, to discuss his goals for SOFC and his personal experience.
The Chronicle: Can you tell me why you are interested in running for the position?
Nikhil Gavai: I think that by being SOFC chair I will have the opportunity to contribute to almost every single group and event on campus. The chance to lead a committee that helps sustain the mission and objectives of each group by letting them have events and helping them plan their own activities, whether that be a potluck or a general body meeting, is why I want to be the chair.
TC: What do you feel qualifies you for this role?
NG: I have a number of experiences that qualify me for the position. This is my second year on the committee. My first year I served as a general member and now I am the vice chair of auditing. Additionally I have served as the treasurer for two different student organizations—both the Duke International Relations Association and Duke Student Government. By being treasurer I understand what it takes to apply to SOFC and the difficulties that sometimes come with it, and because of that I will have the perspective of a lot of these groups when they are dealing with SOFC and I will have some of the outside experience with these groups that some other candidates might not have.
Other than that I have also served as a senator on the academic affairs committee for DSG for a semester, and because of that I understand how the Senate looks at the SOFC proceedings. I understand what the senate looks for and what kind of questions they will have. Having a role on almost every role in the process makes me qualified because I have an understanding of what it takes to get a group’s request to all the channels so that it can eventually be funded.
TC: How do you envision the role of SOFC chair?
NG: I think the SOFC chair is a leader that helps guide the committee members to a more informed opinion. The SOFC chair should always try to find balanced views on an issue and make sure that one person or group is not dominating the committee. The SOFC chair should make sure that everything is equitable and justifiable so that if we want to give a group a certain amount of money then there should be a substantial reason. The SOFC should always have guidelines that they lay for the committee so that there is substance guiding every single decision. I see the SOFC chair as more of an advisor and a leader in that respect—not somebody that makes a decision themselves but someone who helps his or her committee members reach that decision.
TC: This is only the second year we have held student body elections for SOFC chair. How do you see the relationship between the chair and student body?
NG: I think that one of the reasons that the SOFC chair became elected rather than appointed by the Senate was because the chair is supposed to be more accessible to the student body. The fact that the SOFC committee is led by the chair and the fact that it has control of around $700,000 every year through the annual budget and the programming process means that there should be some accountability in the sense that the SOFC chair should be elected by the student body. And because of that I think the SOFC chair should go talk to students about how they could be the best in terms of playing that advisory role and leading a group of members to make informed decisions with that large amount of money.
TC: What do you think students should know about the SOFC and how it works?
NG: The SOFC is the funding body on campus but I think that a lot of students do not know what the SOFC is. We started the SOFC weekly blast, but the number one thing that the SOFC should try to work on is the marketing campaign—not only for students to understand what it is but for student groups to understand that there is this large chunk of money that you have access to help have more events. There are a lot of groups on campus that do not use it as much as they could and I think this is mostly the SOFC’s fault for not reaching out to them and tell them to apply to our fund to obtain money for events.
So in terms of what we do, we will approve as many events as possible, and that is something I want students to know about SOFC. We want to optimize the students’ extracurricular experience at Duke. That is our role. Because of that, we want more groups to come to us and apply for their events. We do not want to just see the same events happen every year, we want more events to happen every year. So when people ask. "What do you want students to know about the SOFC?" I want them to know that we are a very open body that wants to help optimize the undergraduate experience by funding as many events as possible.
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