By graduation, Duke undergraduates will have paid more than $1,000 in taxes to their Duke Student Government through the student activities fee. All but a handful will have done so without any knowledge of how that money was spent.
But students should be concerned. These revenues, totaling more than $638,000 per year, serve as the basis for funding all student organizations. Even a cursory look reveals serious inadequacies in DSG’s oversight of the Student Organization Finance Committee, which distributes the vast majority of student group funds. DSG’s failure to effectively exercise this oversight raises questions as to whether it can claim to represent students at all.
SOFC was created out of a recognition that the DSG Senate was getting bogged down in financial business, junior Gregory Morrison, DSG’s executive vice president, explained to me. It was intended to serve as a “clearinghouse” for the Senate, taking care of fund allocations less than $1,500, processing new group requests and overseeing annual budgeting.
Although the basic concept of delegation behind SOFC is reasonable, the mechanics of the actual DSG-SOFC relationship are somewhere between laughable and outrageous.
DSG advertises open positions by blast e-mailing the student body. Then, Morrison told me that approximately 10 to 20 candidates who fill out the application come before the DSG Senate to present their qualifications. But most DSG senators never actually receive or look at these applications from candidates who, let’s remember, will manage more than half a million dollars.
Instead, DSG has individuals make their case before the Senate—for 30 seconds. By the time candidates get through their name, year and major, they then face a full minute of questioning from DSG senators. The Senate then proceeds directly to a vote—without any discussion of the candidates, according to Athletics and Campus Services Senator Ben Bergmann, a junior.
Basically, your elected DSG senators decide who manages $640,000 of your money on one-and-a-half minute first impressions. Concerned yet?
According to current SOFC Chair and senior David Hu, however, “the process ensures that each member is unique[ly] qualified and fully able to serve on SOFC.”
But how on earth do DSG senators actually obtain sufficient information to inform such a decision within those time constraints? Do candidates get bonus points for a memorable outfit? A funny name? Vice President for Durham and Regional Affairs Will Passo, a junior, told me many senators “don’t even know what they’re voting on.”
Morrison told me that the Senate tries to consider previous budgeting experience by SOFC candidates, either from high school or as club treasurers. Assuming that it’s even possible for SOFC to adequately assess this, it’s arguable whether “budget experience” should be a primary criteria in determining who should compose a committee that is making implicit judgments about what is valuable and what isn’t in student life at Duke. Budget experience may be valuable for some members, but it hardly seems logical to disadvantage students who lack budgeting experience but have a rich background in other areas of student life.
Bergmann pointed out the central dilemma, explaining that “one of the major qualifications to be involved in SOFC is not to be involved in anything.”
“There’s a tension there,” he said, “between not wanting a conflict of interest and wanting students who have a knowledge of what student life is like at Duke.” The effect, he said, is an SOFC that is ill-equipped to make informed judgments about whether or not new student groups fill a unique campus niche and should be recognized.
SOFC’s lack of representativeness and accountability gets worse. Once its members are elected, they are never heard from again. Members of the student body and The Chronicle are not allowed to sit in on meetings. SOFC keeps no accessible meeting minutes or record of individual SOFC members’ votes to support or oppose particular funding requests. Technically, the DSG Senate can send senators to observe meetings, but it has seldom exercised this power in any serious capacity. Therefore, the only insight DSG has into the operation of SOFC is whatever the chairman tells them at meetings.
With so much money on the line, that kind of arms-length accountability doesn’t cut it. As Morrison pointed out, the Senate “exercises oversight of what comes before it, but doesn’t actively go out of its way.”
Duke students should find this alarming. As Passo put it, “DSG often overplays its role on campus, but SOFC is a huge deal, because it affects so many people. If you’re in a club it affects you.” With so much money at stake, one would expect DSG to take greater responsibility. It’s unclear why it hasn’t, in spite of broad agreement among Hu, Morrison and others that the process would benefit from some basic reforms.
Admittedly, this is the tip of the iceberg as far as SOFC’s institutional problems go. But for now, the above issues can be easily addressed. Improving the candidate assessment system would be a good start. DSG should also vigorously exercise its oversight, assigning senators to attend DSG meetings and report back to the Senate. Better yet, SOFC should publicize its meeting notes and allow The Chronicle to report on its decisions, just like DSG, the Duke University Union and Campus Council.
DSG’s hear-no-evil, see-no-evil approach to oversight is utterly inadequate considering the stakes of its financial responsibility. By abdicating the financial control to SOFC with minimal monitoring, DSG threatens to commit the cardinal sin of taxation without representation. And that is no representation at all.
Vikram Srinivasan is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Thursday.
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