The undergraduate Young Trustee selection Feb. 15 seemed to have gone off without a hitch.
But now, some students are questioning the events that led to Brandon Goodwin being awarded the position over fellow seniors Hirsh Sandesara and Chris Kallmeyer.
Concerns have been raised about the overall voting process and propriety of having Duke Student Government senators vote on the issue.
"I was just expecting members of DSG to be more fair," said senior Rashmi Vyas, a voting member of the InterCommunity Council, which narrowed down the field of Young Trustee candidates during a month-long selection process.
The final vote at the DSG meeting was conducted on torn sheets of notebook paper passed out to those in attendance, and even some students who were not eligible to vote received ballots.
One of these students was junior Jeff Federspiel, chair of the Student Organization Finance Committee, who said he was given a piece of paper even though he knew he did not qualify to vote.
Federspiel personally chose not to cast a vote. "However, I would point out that given the nature of the ballot... whether or not I received one would have very little effect on whether I (or anyone else) was able to sneak a vote in or not," Federspiel wrote in an e-mail.
Senior Logan Leinster, DSG vice president of community interaction and president of ICC, dismissed any suggestion of impropriety.
"When we took attendance, we checked the people who were not allowed," she said, adding that the number of ballots counted were equal to the number of eligible voters present.
Some DSG members allegedly chatted on AOL Instant Messenger or surfed the Internet during presentations.
Another issue in question was the DSG senators' objectivity regarding Sandesara, former president of Diya, and Kallmeyer, president of the Duke University Union, in comparison to their attitude toward Goodwin, who is executive vice president of DSG.
Vyas said the room felt more relaxed and informal during Goodwin's speech.
"It was like [he] was talking to a group of friends," Vyas said, noting that he made jokes to which the room responded.
Junior Felix Li, an ICC member, attributed Goodwin's rapport in front of DSG to the fact that he may have felt comfortable speaking in a room of his colleagues.
"That is a sad fact of the nature of the beast," Li said, noting that he did not think Goodwin's selection was a reflection of wrongdoing on DSG's part. "If it was the Union voting and Chris won, I think we'd be having the same discussion."
Li added that some DSG senators asked questions that could indicate a lack of understanding of the duties of a Young Trustee. "A lot of the questions in the meeting, they weren't really something a Young Trustee would ever be addressing," Li noted.
Vyas recalled some questions that centered on pre-major advising, tailgating and the "sophomore slump." Vyas noted that such issues were "out of the scope" of Goodwin's future duties.
Goodwin, however, said many of the questions dealt with issues a Young Trustee would face. "I was asked everything from how i thought pre-professionalism could be curved and how the University could ameliorate its preprofessional programs... [to] how I could represent students from a wide variety of ethnic groups," he said.
He also noted that prior to the selection meeting, the candidates met with DSG committees, the members of which read the candidates' applications "in depth."
In the end, the process was not perfect, but it certainly was not corrupt, said Jordan Giordano, a freshman DSG senator and interim ICC member.
"People are going to perceive this as DSG choosing a DSG person," he said. "But it's impossible to get someone who doesn't know anyone."
There has not been a member of DSG's executive board elected Young Trustee in the last five years, Goodwin noted. "I think history speaks for itself," he explained.
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