Two new dining referendums will accompany Duke Student Government's Spring election ballots that may give students a little more say in what goes into their stomachs.
The referendums will propose that the Duke University Student Dining Advisory Committee become a formal part of DSG and that all future dining additions to campus be endorsed by the student government, sophomore Mike Lefevre, DSG vice president for athletics and campus services, confirmed Monday night.
The primary purpose of the reforms is to provide greater student input into Dining Services decisions, Lefevre noted. Students will be able to voice their support for or complaints of proposed vendor additions at DSG meetings before the Senate votes, he said.
"The take-home point is that it's a huge victory for student rights because it gives [students] the right to have a say in something that they've never had a say in before," Lefevre said.
The proposed process for adding new dining vendors to campus would start with a vendor recommendation from DUSDAC to DSG, followed by a DSG vote of approval.
The addition of Panda Express to the Bryan Center this Fall as a replacement for Lemon Grass, the restaurant initially expected to take up campus space, prompted the proposal, Lefevre said.
"Basically, we want to make it so we never have a repeat of the Panda incident-where you come back to campus and there's a new eatery here you have to live with for four years and you had no say in it and didn't know how it got approved," he said.
Lefevre added that administrators quickly agreed to the possible structural changes. Director of Dining Services Jim Wulforst previously told The Chronicle that Dining Services has been criticized in the past for making decisions without student input, which led him to present plans for The Food Factory to DSG for approval last semester.
"When you have the support en masse of that many folks, or if you don't have support, you know where you stand," Wulforst said of the proposed reforms. "I think I'd rather have this process in place to have us pick the right solution, instead of having us pick something wrong and learn about it afterwards. With this, everyone's involved and everyone's responsible."
Lefevre will present the proposed amendments to senators at Wednesday's DSG meeting. He will also present possible changes to DSG's bylaws that would detail the specifics of how DUSDAC functions, including allowing DSG to be part of the member-selection process.
The new bylaws were presented to, revised and approved by DUSDAC members for a DSG vote at the committee's meeting Monday night, said DUSDAC Co-chair Sarah Ramig, a senior.
DSG members will vote on the proposals at their meeting next week. If a two-thirds majority approves the reforms, the bylaw changes would go into effect immediately and the two referendums would be placed on DSG's Spring ballots.
"We don't want this to be DSG stepping on DUSDAC-it benefits both DSG and DUSDAC," said DSG President Jordan Giordano, a senior,
Cary-based Food Factory-slated to come to campus this semester but recently delayed until Fall-was recommended to DSG by DUSDAC and approved last semester, but Lefevre said the process was unofficial and non-binding. He added, however, that it served as a good example of the process possible vendors will go through if the referendums are passed.
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