Duke Student Government senators approved a new Krzyzewskiville Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Committee and held elections for the 2022-23 DSG president pro tempore at their Wednesday evening meeting.
The new K-Ville committee was created to address the “exclusive community within campus culture” that excludes students with different ability statuses and low-income students, according to the committee statute.
The vice president of equity and outreach and a co-head line monitor will co-chair the committee, while the president and executive vice president will serve as ex-officio members of the committee. Any additional members of the undergraduate student body will be selected by the co-chairs of the committee and will include at least three members who have tented, while the vice president of campus life will automatically serve as a member.
In seeking input from “all relevant stakeholders,” including Duke undergraduates and Duke Athletics, the new committee “shall investigate, determine the feasibility of and make recommendations for the reform of the Krzyzewskiville Walk-Up Line, Other Games and Carolina Game policies,” the committee statute read.
Once convened following the fall 2022 first-year senator elections, the committee will “seek to improve the equity and accessibility of the aforementioned Krzyzewskiville policies and to maintain the core spirit of Krzyzewskiville,” the committee statute read.
Senators heard speeches from candidates for the 2022-23 DSG president pro tempore.
“[The president pro tempore] runs the legislative agenda, the calendar [and] they set up all the different events that have to happen. They run the votes on things; they approve what comes to the Senate floor. Next year, they’re going to serve on the executive board,” said Devan Desai, a junior and current DSG president pro tempore. “The pro-temp is really just a person that runs and manages the senate.”
Junior senator Swetha Rajagopal, sophomore senator Isaiah Hamilton and first-year senators Viktoria Wulff-Andersen, Preston Nibley and David Surzykiewicz presented and advocated for their experiences to their peers. The five candidates also engaged in a 10-minute questioning period.
Senators elected Hamilton as their next president pro tempore.
“[I’d be] looking at DSG one-on-one, and making sure senators know what their responsibilities are, who they can contact, who they can really go upstream and try to feed that information—really focusing on communication,” Hamilton said. “I also want to be accessible to every senator, personally and really get to know everybody in the senate.”
In other business
Duke Student Government allocated $7,862.50 for Duke Diya’s semiformal, $5,383.16 and $5,782.00 for duARTs’s Plazapalooza event and Brickside Music Festival respectively, $3,069.93 for the Swing Dance Club’s showcase, $3,755.18 for the Jewish Student Union’s annual B'nai Mitzvah, $3,100.00 for Catalyst’s Web3 weekend, $1,639.40 for the Persian Students Association’s Persian New Year Concert, $3,049.00 for DukeLIFE’s first-generation, low-income student and faculty dinner, $5,600.00 for the Asian Students Association’s “Resisting, Recovering, Remembering” panel and $9,970.00 for the Statistical Science Majors Union’s 2022 Datafest.
Senators also allocated $50,000 from the DSG General Fund to the SOFC Programming Fund to fulfill programming events and $200.00 from the Legislative Discretionary Fund to representatives from the Information Technology Advisory Council for gift card incentives for the 2022 Undergraduate Information Technology Survey.
Desai and Executive Vice President Ramya Ginjupalli, a senior, held a second reading of the executive by-law and a first reading of the judiciary by-law.
Desai and Ginjupalli also held a first reading of the election by-law to be enacted after the upcoming elections. The by-law clarifies that visiting students will be eligible to run for DSG if they will be enrolled for the entire term of the office they are running for.
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Audrey Wang is a Trinity senior and data editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume. She was previously editor-in-chief for Volume 119.