And then there were two.
In the race for Duke Student Government vice president of athletics and campus services, the field of candidates has already been cut in half. Following junior Hirsh Sandesara and sophomore Daron Gunn’s withdrawals, only sophomore Ryan Strasser and junior Brenda Bautsch still remain. Now, they will face off for leadership of the committee, addressing campus-wide issues related to safety, parking, transit, dining, facilities and athletics.
Strasser, currently vice president of the Class of 2007, is also a DSG liaison to Duke University Student Dining Advisory Committee and a member of the Interfraternity Council executive board. The New Jersey native, who picks Shooters as his nightspot of choice, has served as a DSG senator for the past two years.
Bautsch, an avid snowboarder hailing from Denver, Colo., has spent two years on the DSG Senate as well. She looks to her leadership of the subcommittee on transportation as a source of inspiration for her campaign. If elected, she would use this experience to ameliorate the bus situation at Duke.
“I would look at improving transportation to off-campus locations and Central Campus, adding another bus during peak times on the Central route and putting another bus stop on Oregon,” she said. She also aims to get Global Positioning Systems installed on the buses and use that to help students locate the buses online.
Bautsch also highlighted student security as one of her primary concerns. “In the past there have been complaints regarding police behavior, including racial profiling and falling asleep on the job,” Bautsch said. “We need clear ideas of what students should expect and what police should expect. We also need to increase trust between DUPD and students.”
Creating “police office hours,” in which students could meet with members of DUPD once a month at the Great Hall, is one of Bautsch’s ideas for strengthening relations between the two groups.
Strasser cited dining concerns as one of the primary issues he plans to address if elected. As DSG liaison to DUSDAC, he helped initiate an equivalence program that allows freshmen to pay for lunch at the Marketplace with unused meal credits left over from breakfast.
“I’d like to take that one step further,” Strasser said, “and make that equivalence useful at the Great Hall as well.” He emphasized that this would increase the diversity of freshman dining options, allowing for increased meal variety and more flexible scheduling for students with classes on West Campus.
Bringing a sports bar to West is important to Strasser, as is increasing the open hours for Wilson Gym. This move is aimed at providing students who cannot find the time during the day with additional exercise opportunities.
Strasser also hopes to improve communication between students and the administration, especially in light of recent frustration over losing the permit for post-basketball game bonfires. Clarifying what the administration and fire department expect of students is crucial to “ironing out” these kinds of problems in the future, he said.
Both candidates see a need to make DSG a more relevant organization in the eyes of the student body.
“We need to make sure that DSG doesn’t become a programming organization,” Strasser said. “We need to remain policy-oriented. When we write legislation, we need to focus on things that can be done.”
Similarly, Bautsch said she looks forward to building cooperation throughout DSG to improve the organization’s effectiveness.
“I’m looking forward to increasing collaboration between committees and getting DSG’s reputation back up for producing tangible results,” she said. “Even when it comes to small changes.”
As for Sandesara and Gunn, both said that, ultimately, leadership of the Athletics and Campus Services Committee could be better served by someone else.
“Considering time commitments, current projects and future goals, I ultimately rationalized that my time was best spent serving the students in my current role,” Gunn wrote in an e-mail. “The University is making huge leaps in technology across the campus, and I really enjoy voicing student concerns and helping to shape the future development of technology on this campus.” Gunn is currently responsible for helping to establish DukePass and Online Event Registration.
Sandesara put it simply, saying: “I just thought about it for a while and decided that DSG wasn’t what I wanted to do with my senior year.”
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