For some student legislators, like Duke Student Government President Matthew Slovik, the nearly three-and-a-half hour meeting Wednesday night was a tearful conclusion to a four-year experience. Before the senior sermons and giggly jokes that concluded the 10th DSG Senate, however, the body faced a full docket--including a presentation by Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta, several pieces of legislation and nominations and selections of several officials for the next year.
Moneta presented information to the Senate to explain his recent decision to increase mandatory student programming fees by $100.
"Instead of taking money from the Arts & Sciences or the faculty, so it wouldn't compete for tuition [money], we reduced our tuition allocation for a money allocation from the fees," he said.
The additional dollars will go toward solidifying the "soft funding" currently used to pay for many cultural events out of the budget of the Office of Student Activities and Facilities. Moneta said his office was working on making the fee increase a separate item on semester bills and he did not mean to infringe on the Senate's authority over the fee. "I admit when I did [make the fee increase] I should have spoken to you first," he added.
DSG President-elect Pasha Majdi presented his appointments for the Chief of Staff and Head Line Monitor positions. Although he did not conduct an application process for the seat, Majdi nominated junior Aneil Lala to serve as chief of staff.
"I think he's arguably been the greatest [quadrangle] president the school's ever had," Majdi said of Lala, who is currently serving as president of the West-Edens Link quadrangle. "I always wanted to take DSG into more of a programming role, so I needed a chief of staff that had experience with that, and Aneil is obviously an expert."
Majdi did, however, conduct an application process for the head line monitor position, and he selected junior Steve Rawson to fill the spot. Majdi, who is well known for his involvement as a Cameron Crazy, said Rawson is responsible and has experience tenting and as line monitor.
In addition to Majdi's appointments, the Senate selected junior Dave Rausen as the Student Organizational Finance Committee Chair for 2004-2005 and junior Josh Allen-Dicker, freshman Jeff Federspiel, freshman Kelvin Low, junior Meera Patel and sophomore Camille Smith as SOFC members. DSG also elected sophomore Russ Ferguson president pro tempore and junior Emilie Lemke as Chief Justice for DSG's 11th session.
Before confirming its student representatives to the Duke Board of Trustees and Presidential Committees, DSG halted a bylaw change presented by Executive Vice President-elect Andrew Wisnewski, currently Vice President of Community Interaction. The change would have allowed DSG presidents to have discretion over which Board of Trustees committee he or she participates in. Instead, the DSG president will continue to be automatically appointed to the Business and Finance Committee.
Following the failure of Wisnewski's bylaw change, the Senate confirmed the nomination of seven undergraduates--sophomore Christopher Chin to the Academic Affairs Committee, Majdi and Wisnewski to the Business and Finance Committee, freshman Anthony Collins to the Buildings and Grounds Committee, sophomore Hirsh Sandesara to the Medical Center Affairs Committee, junior Priscilla Mpasi to the President's Advisory Council on Black Affairs, junior Anthony Vitarelli to the Student Affairs Committee and sophomore Paige Sparkman to the University Priorities Committee.
The Senate passed three resolutions about flyering--including a resolution proposing new flyering rules, a resolution addressing flyering regulation enforcement and a resolution encouraging more flyering venues on campus.
George Fleming, a freshman senator who co-authored the first resolution, said the bill was a way to ensure important announcements were not immediately "plastered over." The resolution called for limits on the number of flyers from a particular organization that can be placed on one flyering venue, as well as the date they can be placed there. Among other limits, the resolution also proposes that student groups only be allowed to paint one-quarter of the bridge over Campus Drive at a time.
The other resolutions recommended that the DSG investigate establishing an enforcement mechanism for chartered student groups that violate the flyering policies, as well as implementation of additional flyering space on campus. Some suggestions, including the establishment of a "Director of Flyering," were met with criticism from the Senate.
"We're here for the students, not here to police them," said junior Senator Avery Capone. "This goes against the spirit of DSG."
Despite the criticism the bills passed, as did legislation establishing a new DSG award, the President Keohane Award. The new award will be presented to an administrator, faculty or staff member who has worked to promote undergraduate life.
IN OTHER BUSINESS:
SOFC Chair Kristin Jackson presented the 2004-2005 DSG Budget, which the Senate approved.
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