Students of the Caribbean Association has 20 active members, about 10 of whom show up to each bi-weekly meeting. And not all of them have Caribbean backgrounds.
Despite its small membership, however, SOCA has no small budget-$1,865 for the 2006-2007 academic year.
The vast number of student organizations like SOCA that only have a few actively participating members has led some students to question whether specialized clubs are claiming a disproportionally large amount of Duke Student Government's annual programming fund.
Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs, said curbing extraneous clubs might make it easier for groups to reach a broader scope of students, but also stressed the importance of the right to start an independent group.
"The proliferation of student organizations has both benefits and liabilities," Moneta said. "The challenge is to optimize the positive. There are any number of ways DSG can handle the proliferation without limiting the opportunity for student organizations to grow."
Sophomore Alex Crable, chair of the Student Organization Finance Committee-a legislative agency of DSG-said DSG has allocated more than enough funding for all student-run groups, making it possible for well financed, niche-oriented groups to exist without harming larger ones.
"I define having too many clubs as lacking resources," Crable said. "I really don't think clubs are fighting over resources. We still have $90,000 left for this year. I don't have much fear, nor have I heard any complaints."
A motivated student can create an official club without much difficulty, Crable said. Once a student completes a club constitution and gets signatures from 10 potential members, SOFC makes a recommendation to the DSG Senate to either deny, recognize or charter the group.
If the vote confirms the recommendation, the initiative becomes an official club.
Moneta said DSG should look into creating a more "rigorous" application process for new groups. As of now, groups recognized by a DSG vote can earn funds through the SOFC Programming Fund, but only chartered organizations can apply for an annual budget.
Clubs seeking a renewal of their charters have little difficulty retrieving one, even if their membership drops, said Marissa Weiss, program coordinator for the Office of Student Activities and Facilities.
"Do continuing groups still have 10 members or not?" Weiss said. "We don't know that-we don't collect rosters."
The total funding given to SOCA may amount to an average of more than $90 per member, but club president Renee Johnson, a junior, said that merging with other small cultural groups would cause SOCA to lose some of its unique identity.
"I do think it's important to keep it a separate entity because not everyone is as interested as we are about the culture," Johnson said. "A lot of them enjoy the fact that we have a small, more intimate community."
Weiss said as long as small groups don't claim enough funding to endanger the organizations that affect more students, the policy of awarding programming funds to specialized groups can facilitate a profound experience for the few students in them.
"It's not like DSG gives these groups an exorbitant amount of money, so I'm not worried," Weiss said. "Some groups are serving a unique niche to the 14 or 15 students involved."
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