At its Wednesday meeting, the Duke Student Government Senate voted to pass a Student Organization Funding Committee budgetary statute for Diya, Duke’s South Asian student association.
Diya applied for funding for their off-campus Garba event, part of the Hindu festival Navratri, which was initially opposed by some members.
“I think a lot of the reasons that certain people were against it was not because they were targeting the event at all, but because they wanted to send out a certain message [for which] there are different ways we could have done that,” sophomore Chaya Bhat, senator for equity and outreach, said.
Senate President Pro-Tempore John Turanchik, a senior, spoke against the budget, citing a transgression of SOFC bylaws.
“It seemed like SOFC was being a little bit soft,” Turnachik said. “SOFC doesn’t really have any oversight on a lot of things, especially on small budgetary items. So if they’re acting this way on things they know are going in front of Senate, and kind of playing loose and fast with the bylaws, then what are they doing at the smaller levels that we can’t see?”
He said that he thought SOFC was breaking its own bylaws because the statute did not allocate funding for transportation to the off-campus event, which is required according to SOFC guidelines.
Senators debated two amendments to the budgetary statute.
An amendment proposed by sophomore Will Hardee, vice president for services, that suggested adding $800 to the budget in order to fund transportation to the off-campus event was eventually voted down.
“I proposed the amendment to make sure that the event was more accessible for one, and for two, that it followed SOFC guidelines,” Hardee said.
Sophomore Jackson Dellinger, senator for Durham and regional affairs, spoke against this amendment, citing a trend of “predatory” budget proposals. Dellinger noted that events often advertise before requesting funding, limiting DSG’s ability to edit budgets.
“It’s not a malicious thing,” Dellinger said. “It’s just that last year we had a lot of situations where we had really high dollar requests, maybe like $10,000 or $5,000, or something like that, where the event had already been advertised. People from other states, for example, were already coming in. So student government had no choice but to fund it.”
Dellinger said that funding runs out toward the end of the semester, and thus there is an imbalance in how events at the start of the semester are liberally funded and events at the end of the semester are not.
The other amendment, suggested by sophomore Sean Bissel, vice president of academic affairs, stipulated that Diya must publicize their Google form for carpool transportation to the off-campus Garba event. It passed unanimously.
With the amendment, the SOFC budgetary statute passed with a 32 “aye” to 26 “nay” vote.
In other business:
Senate also heard from Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs, about the new student health building, the future of Central Campus and the task force for bias and hate issues.
The Senate passed a statute that de-chartered and dissolved 45 student organizations who were previously funded by the SOFC.
Sophomore Kayla Thompson, vice president for social culture, announced the creation of the Pitch-a-Project committee, which would allot $50,000 for student-led projects that “they believe would improve the undergraduate experience."
Three new groups were chartered—Catalyst, Writing with Women and Duke Surf and Skate.
Two SOFC budgetary statutes for Phi Beta Sigma and the International Association were also passed.
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