The two candidates in the 2007 race for Duke Student Government executive vice president have one thing in common-experience.
Sophomores Alex Crable and Jordan Giordano are running head-to-head in the race. Both candidates have served on DSG for two years, Giordano as this year's vice president of community interaction and Crable as this year's chair of the Student Organization Finance Committee.
The winner of the race will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of DSG and for the organization's weekly general body meetings, and both Crable and Giordano have developed a number of ideas about how to improve student life.
Crable said he will look to accomplish several short-term, tangible projects, including requiring professors to post all previous exams on Blackboard, revamping the University calendar to showcase individual student groups' events and increasing online academic resources for students.
"We're not talking about lobbying for Central Campus; we're not talking about mass-scale changes to the Bryan Center. We're talking about things that you will see get done next year, and you will feel the effects next year," Crable said.
He added that his experience as the chair of SOFC will help him facilitate the everyday responsibilities of DSG, which include funding student groups. As the liaison between SOFC and the DSG general body, he has dealt with all committees of DSG, as well as many student groups on campus, he added.
"One big step in the future would be to have an EVP who is just as familiar with the funding guidelines as he is with the rest of DSG," Crable said.
He added that he wants to create two cabinet committees. One will get information about DSG and student issues out to the campus, and the other will collect student opinions.
"Senators should be as informed as possible before they make their vote for their representative students," he said, adding that both of these committees will be designed to increase the transparency and accountability of DSG.
As his focus, Giordano said he hopes to "tackle the [Campus Culture Initiative]" by promoting student input and bringing the issues raised by the Campus Culture Initiative's recent report to the DSG senate floor.
"Our primary goal next year is to really make sure that student voices are heard on the CCI, especially because it's going to directly affect our lives, so significantly, more significantly than perhaps anything DSG has ever done," Giordano said. "A bus route is great, events are great, but the CCI can have such a great impact that it's something that we have to focus on."
Giordano said he will also aim to improve DSG as a lobbying organization, to expand social spaces on West Campus and to enhance student services.
"My platform is to make DSG strong by changing it and holding a constitutional convention, changing the bylaws to make DSG stronger as an organization in the future," Giordano said.
Giordano added that his experience as DSG vice president of community interaction, chair of the InterCommunity Council and chair of the Young Trustee Selection Committee will help him relate to next year's other executive board members and move legislation forward.
"I really feel like I can help the VPs next year really succeed in their positions and do what they want to do in their platforms, because I know how it's done, I've done it before, I've sat on those committees before, and I know what they want to accomplish," Giordano said.
He added that his campaign strategy has been to "talk to as many people and groups as possible."
"Individual people have individual things they are concerned about, and so they don't want to hear that I care about 'X,' when they care about 'Y,'" Giordano said.
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