Duke Student Government representatives unanimously endorsed a constitutional amendment Wednesday night that splits the vice president for community interaction into two new positions: a vice president for Durham and regional affairs and a vice president for the Inter-Community Council.-
At the 20-minute meeting, Executive Vice President Jordan Giordano, a junior, gave a presentation delineating the responsibilities of the new vice presidents. The vice president for Durham and regional affairs will address undergraduate issues in the Durham community, and the vice president for the ICC will deal with internal community issues by serving as chair of both ICC and the Young Trustee Nomination Committee.
The student body will vote on a referendum to approve the split during the time of freshman DSG elections. If approved, the new positions will become effective next year.
The vice president for community interaction is currently responsible for all the tasks of external and internal community affairs. Giordano, who held the post last year, said the role's duties are too difficult to handle, despite help from the community liason-, a temporary cabinet position created last year to assume some of those tasks.
"Having been a vice president for community interaction, [I know] there's not a lot of time to do everything," Giordano said. "I spoke to the previous vice president, and he said he was burned out and never did DSG again."
He added that DSG's vice president for Durham and regional affairs will collaborate with the University's vice president for Durham and regional affairs, a post created last May that will take effect in January.
Some members discussed the option of having the ICC chair as a position appointed by the DSG president. Giordano said, however, that electing both vice presidents would "legitimize" the positions more than if they were appointed. He added that having an elected ICC chair would reduce bias during the young yrustee selection process if the DSG president chose to run for the position.
In other business:
Representatives unanimously endorsed an election bylaw proposed by Attorney General Paul Zarian, a sophomore, preventing a candidate for DSG office who drops out of a race from rejoining, in response to the incident last year in which a candidate attempted to rejoin the day before the election.
Members also unanimously approved a change to the Student Organization Finance Committee bylaws, which merges the Auditing Committee into the SOFC.
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