Vote Mecklai, Samman and Gavai Tuesday

On March 3, students will cast their votes to select the new leaders for Duke Student Government and the Student Organization Funding Committee. Amid the sea of campaign posters peppering campus walls, we would like to take this opportunity to endorse Keizra Mecklai for DSG President, Shaker Samman for DSG Executive Vice President and Nikhil Gavai for SOFC Chair.

President

The two candidates running for the DSG presidency, juniors Keizra Mecklai and Tucker Albert, both bring energy and ambitious plans to the position. Both Albert and Mecklai boast achievements that have improved various aspects of the student experience. In terms of future plans, Albert and Mecklai showed distinctions in how to implement overlaps in their visions. One of Albert’s proposals is a safer campus through an innovative mobile Blue Light application, which can allow victims of sexual assault or robbery to discreetly call Duke Police for help. Mecklai envisions modifying sexual misconduct policy to match our peer institutions that do a better job at responding to crimes of this nature. Both Mecklai and Albert want to see the expansion of PACT training. The strengths of both candidates are notable, but the Editorial Board was impressed by Mecklai’s grasp of University policies through past advocacy and her scope of vision, which includes, among others, modifying medical leave policy with the support of Counseling and Psychological Services officials and increasing DSG transparency to its student constituents.

Executive Vice President

For the first election cycle in several years, the position of DSG EVP is contested. Sophomores John Guarco and Shaker Samman are running for the position that presides over DSG’s internal workings and demands intimate knowledge and instantiation of the organization’s bylaws. We valued both candidates’ commitment to DSG and appreciated Guarco’s call for annual reviews of DSG vice presidents. However, we were more impressed by Samman’s willingness to offer critiques, in addition to affirmations, of how senate meetings are conducted. Such candid reflection is especially critical given the restructuring of DSG that will take place—a process that necessities an EVP with a strong grasp of internal DSG workings and a vision for reshaping the senate. Samman shows this commitment and a commitment to increasing the involvement in proceedings of new senators. Samman will hopefully reduce DSG inefficiencies and make these processes transparent to the student body through enforcing the DSG blog post updates and greater publicity of DSG initiatives. Transparency is a core tenet of Samman’s platform. For these reasons, the Editorial Board endorses Samman for DSG EVP.

SOFC

We were impressed by all three candidates running for the position of SOFC chair. Apara Sivaraman, Sanford Morton and Nikhil Gavai presented visions to diversify SOFC and improve transparency in light of last year’s 40 Percent Plan. Each candidate displayed knowledge about the functioning of SOFC and an understanding of the importance of SOFC decisions to the student groups affected by SOFC funding. The differentiating quality between these candidates was experience. Nikhil Gavai is the Editorial Board’s first choice for chair given his swath of experience as DSG Treasurer and on SOFC, which gives him intimate procedural knowledge and knowledge of what makes proposals to SOFC more successful.