Duke Student Government senators discussed funding cultural events at their Wednesday meeting.
Senators approved a funding exception for the Singapore Students Association’s Mid-Autumn Festival, affirming the body’s role in supporting cultural groups as they struggle to access funding from the Cultural Engagement Fund.
Anthony Salgado, a junior, provided more context to the funding request. According to Salgado, the departure of J’Nai Adams, former associate director for the Center for Multicultural Affairs, has complicated the process for accessing the Center’s Cultural Engagement Fund.
“I'm assuming that many more cultural groups will be coming here in the next few weeks, and that's perfectly normal,” he said.
The senators debated $1,600 for SSA’s event and discussed limits on funding for desserts. According to the Student Organization Funding Committee’s policy, dessert funding is limited to $6 per person. Emphasizing the cultural significance of mooncakes, SSA requested $8 per person for the dessert.
Senator Alex Dray, a sophomore, opposed the motion, stating, “This is a very important event, but I feel like it's unfair for their group to say we're going to make an SOFC exception by doing the $8 instead of the $6.”
“When the administration fails to do something like this, the bill does come to us,” said senator Brien Brennan, a sophomore who supported the motion, which ultimately passed.
DSG President Lana Gesinsky, a senior, outlined DSG’s current stance on recent changes to SLGs on campus and emphasized the need to coordinate with administration. She said there was a legislative statute initially drafted regarding SLGs, but DSG "recently learned there might be some more work from the administrative side" and will now table the statute.
“We are going to use the rest of this week to ensure that we really know what is going on before we take any actions,” Gesinsky said.
Gesinsky also thanked the senators for their collaboration on coffee chats, one of many reforms to improve the first-year experience in DSG.
“It is really just to answer any first-years’ questions that they may have about recruitment [or] your experience in DSG,” she said.
In other business
Junior Shreya Joshi, vice president of campus life, and Dray co-sponsored a motion to allocate $2,400 towards jackets and game day bands for line monitors. The pandemic interrupted tenting, which meant there was an unprecedented number of line monitors that graduated in 2022 and they now need to add more line monitors.
Senators allocated $5,600 for Duke MMA’s lessons at United Thai Boxing & MMA Gym, $1,950 for Duke Students for Justice in Palestine’s speaker Ahmad Amireh and $1,890 for Students Supporting Israel’s speaker Bassem Eid.
DSG senators confirmed junior Zoe Tishaev and sophomores Jax Nalley and Preston Nibley to the Information Technology Advisory Council and junior Ben Perry as the new DSG Treasurer.
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Senou Kounouho is a Pratt sophomore and a university news editor of The Chronicle's 119th volume.