Diya Endorses Tara Bansal for DSG President

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The executive board of Duke Diya, the South Asian Students Association, had the opportunity to talk with the three DSG Presidential candidates recently, and we are excited to formally endorse Tara Bansal.

We were impressed by Bansal’s ability to tailor her conversation to Diya by presenting a three-fold plan to empower smaller communities through more funding, enhance our political voice as an organization and bring back South Asian alumni to combat stereotyping. The connection she formed with us in less than 10 minutes makes us confident that she is able to understand a range of student issues and develop tangible plans to address them. We also liked Bansal’s plan to “re-execute” DSG instead of “redefining” it because it celebrates some of the great work that has come out of DSG, yet understands some of the major flaws in the system.

Adair presented some great ideas to encourage more open events, increase diversity in the DSG Senate, and work with Durham to connect our communities. Both Adair and Bansal also talked about reforming SOFC so student groups can get appropriate funding for events, which we are excited about because we have struggled with this throughout the year. However, Adair’s emphasis on DSG’s current senate as “self-absorbed” makes us nervous for her potential to alienate her senate and negatively affect DSG’s future productivity.

Guarco’s plans include increasing diversity within the faculty and the DSG Senate, reforming the curriculum to include the Duke Experience, and ensuring justice and fairness in Student Conduct. Although we appreciated Guarco’s ideas, we had a difficult time understanding concrete and realistic ways he would work towards these goals.

We really enjoyed talking with all the candidates and are confident that Tara Bansal would shine as next year’s DSG President.

Shalini Subbarao & Jemi Galani

Trinity ‘17