Voting was the name of the game when Duke Student Government convened for the first time of the academic year Wednesday night.
During the meeting, two executive orders and three budgetary statutes were passed, and 19 new officials were elected.
Noticeably absent from the meeting, which lasted nearly three hours, were freshman and at-large senators who will be elected throughout the next two weeks.
"It was the first meeting of the year, so it's always good to get off to a good start," DSG President and senior Jesse Longoria said. "The goal is first and foremost to serve the students. The meeting will be used to support student initiatives."
Legislations regarding the Student Organization Finance Committee and judicial and auditing matters for DSG were passed. All three areas are "hallmarks" of DSG, said Executive Vice President and meeting presider Brandon Goodwin, a senior.
Vice presidents of the four DSG Committees outlined their goals for the upcoming year. In an executive order passed Wednesday, SOFC expanded in size to 15 members, 10 of whom were elected Wednesday night. Following constitutional policy, three Justices were also elected by the senate.
Referencing the 84 e-mails he received from students who were interested in SOFC alone, Goodwin said he was pleased with the number of students participating in DSG and SOFC.
SOFC Chair Jeff Federspiel, a junior, said the participation in SOFC and the quality of applicants is unprecedented this year.
"It shows that students really do want to get involved. Students are reaching out, and we are reaching out to students as well to make sure they can get involved if they want to," Goodwin said.
Those interested in DSG and SOFC are also much more diverse than in years past, Goodwin said.
Even with the growing interest, some members of DSG, including former Treasurer Chris Chin who resigned Monday, said that it was unethical to hold a legislative meeting without freshman or at-large senators who have yet to be elected.
Goodwin said, however, the meeting was necessary and constitutional.
"This has been a question we've discussed at length internally," Goodwin said. He added that the Executive Committee ultimately deemed it necessary to hold a meeting in order to serve the needs of students.
"We are in accordance with our constitution," Longoria said. "And we are ensuring that student groups have the ability to hold successful programming."
Without the meeting Wednesday, Longoria and Goodwin said, important initiatives would not be addressed until November.
"It's not optimal, but it's the best we can offer... I need help, I'm not going to lie," Federspiel said, citing the difficulty of doing the work of 15 people with a skeleton crew of five.
Ten SOFC members, six SOFC auditors and three Justices were elected at the meeting.
In addition, Section V of the DSG by-laws was amended to limit the use of facebook.com by future DSG candidates. The amendment was made shortly before the freshman and at-large senate elections, which take place Sept. 28 and Oct. 2, respectively.
Also approved were three budgetary statutes proposed by SOFC that totalled $3,783.50.
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