The Young Trustee Nominating Committee selects 10 semifinalists

The Young Trustee Nominating Committee has selected 10 semifinalists.

The semifinalists are Alikiah Barclay, Marcus Benning, Steven Blaser, Valentine Esposito, Neil Kondamuri, Marc Osian, Jacob Tobia, Katherine Zhang, Hong Zhu and Jacob Zionce, said YTNC Chair Katya Prosvirkina, a senior.

Eight of the 10 are seniors, with the exceptions being Barclay—who graduated in Winter 2013—and Zionce, who is a junior. Barclay was also a semifinalist for the position last year.

The Young Trustee serves one year on the Board of Trustees as a nonvoting member and two years as a voting member. Chris Brown, Trinity '13, was elected Young Trustee in last year's election.

All of the applicants for the position were named semifinalists, Prosvirkina said, a situation which also occurred in last year's selection process. Duke Student Government bylaws require a minimum of eight semifinalists with no maximum.

The nominating committee will name two to five finalists by next Wednesday, Prosvirkina noted. The undergraduate student body will then vote to determine the winner.

The YTNC altered its classifications for conflicts of interest between committee members and applicants—now including a category for moderate conflicts of interest, in addition to minor and major ones as before.

According to a document obtained by The Chronicle, the 14 members of the YTNC declared 26 minor conflicts of interest, 13 moderate conflicts of interest and 14 major conflicts of interest with the 10 semifinalists.

"So far it's been working very well, because everyone's very honest," Prosvirkina said. "It's quite detailed in terms of defining affiliation."

Last year, the YTNC declared 13 minor and eight major conflicts of interest with the eight semifinalists.

"This year, we took a very extensive meeting to define the different types of conflict," Prosvirkina said. "In detail, we checked each other's level of conflict."

Zhang and Kondamuri are members of The Chronicle's independent editorial board. Zhang served as chair of the editorial board last year.

This article was updated at 7:29 p.m. to reflect new information.