Whether half full or half empty, a cup is still a cup.
"People will argue till they're blue in the face, but it's still the same glass," said senior Joshua Jean-Baptiste, president of Duke Student Government.
As he reflected on DSG's performance so far this year, Jean-Baptiste said the group's work has been largely inefficient because of that type of roundabout disagreement among executive members. That disagreement, he said, points to a deeper fault in the organization's basic structure: too many different agendas.
Currently, DSG's six executive officers--who together comprise the organization's leadership--are all elected separately. Hence, they usually run separate campaigns and have separate visions for undergraduate student governance. The result, Jean-Baptiste said, has often been inaction.
Hoping to make DSG more effective, Jean-Baptiste will outline a plan for restructuring the student government's organization--which he and DSG Attorney General Will Fagan developed over winter break--at the Legislature's meeting tonight.
"By saying, 'Well, you do your thing and I'll do mine,' we're not going to get anything major done," Jean-Baptiste said.
In a Chronicle column Monday, senior Bill English accused the DSG executive committee of "crippling" Jean-Baptiste's agenda, singling out Executive Vice President Justin Ford and Vice President for Student Affairs Troy Clair for using "petty personal politics" to block initiatives.
"Justin Ford is an elected official, and he has a job to do," Jean-Baptiste said. "Everybody did their job well this year, and as a result, it led to gridlock."
Although he declined to comment on English's column, Ford said he thought disagreement among executive committee members was not a result of structural problems, adding that differing opinions allowed for improved policy.
"I am a firm believer that ideas forged through the crucible of debate between opposing and diverse views are the best kind of policy that any organization could hope to achieve," he said.
Jean-Baptiste's plan includes reducing the elected executive positions from six to three-president, executive vice president and chancellor--elected in a ticket format. Furthermore, the student body would elect 35 senators, some by class, instead of the current 50 legislators.
Under the executive vice president, four committees--facilities, student life, academics and appointments--would each elect their committee chairs internally. Community Interaction would become a DSG standing committee.
Chief of Staff Emily Grey said Jean-Baptiste proposed his plans to the executive committee in January and gathered feedback from the group, which ultimately voted not to present the plan to the general body.
"If the executive committee does not agree with the proposal, the person who brings it always has the option to bring it to the Legislature instead or to take that advice and bring it back to [the executive committee] revised," Grey said. "That's something that has been done in years past, but it hasn't been utilized to its fullest capacity this year."
Despite internal disagreements, Grey said she did not feel as though differing opinions hindered the executive officers' performances. "I think the dynamic of the executive committee has been a challenge, but I think that we were still able to get a lot individually done this year."
Ford agreed.
"The degree of professionalism in DSG has been far superior to any of my previous experiences with the organization," he said, highlighting smooth elections, passing the Greening Initiative, seeing the Student Accessible Course Evaluation System become permanent and gathering undergraduate input on parking, safety and women's issues.
"We've done it in a manner that was without controversy and contention, which I think accounts for our low profile this year," Ford said.
While individual projects may have been productive, Jean-Baptiste said he felt disagreement fostered by structural weakness forced executives to avoid controversial issues, especially social life.
"We either end up voting, or we get so much gridlock that the issue cannot be discussed," Jean-Baptiste said. "We had little incentive to talk about controversial issues because it was so painful to do."
He added that DSG needs to provide more services for the student body, and although it has served as a strong advocate for some issues like SACES, it has fallen short on others.
"I wanted to talk about the changes in the greek system, as in things that have been happening particularly to residential fraternities and having the administration provide an explanation as to what was happening," Jean-Baptiste said. However, the executive committee could not agree on how to approach the administration publicly to question its future plans for the greek system.
Given the current structure, though, "I think we've done the best that we could," Jean-Baptiste said. "I want the candidates who are running next year to talk about this. I want the student body to demand that DSG change, unless the student body doesn't mind DSG being ineffective."
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