The Duke Partnership for Service presented the budget for the The Benefit—the annual library party—at Campus Council’s weekly meeting Thursday.
The Benefit is a collaboration between DPS and Purple. The party will be the biggest event of DPS’s “The P.S. Program.”
“The P.S. Program is a grassroots social service recruitment program that will aim to gather 25,000 hours of service campus-wide,” said DPS President Adam Nathan, a senior, who presented the proposal to Campus Council.
This year’s library party will focus on service, with five sections of the library themed based on five different elements of service. The Link will be transformed into a dance floor, von der Heyden Pavilion will have an environmental theme, the first floor of Perkins Library will center around poverty and education and the first floor of Bostock Library will focus on health issues.
“We still want to throw a great party, and that’s why we’re here at Campus Council,” Nathan said. “It’s a great way to bring different sources of people together around such an important theme of service.”
The council voted to allocate $5,000 in funds to The Benefit, indicating a 43-percent increase in funds from last year’s $3,500 allocation to the Library Party, said Finance Committee Chair Sean Puneky, a senior.
In other business:
After months of negotiation, the pets community on Central Campus has been confirmed and will be available this Fall.
“It’s nice to see our work come to fruition,” said Campus Council President Stephen Temple, a junior.
Campus Council members also discussed Resident Life and Housing Services’ Room Pix survey, asking lifestyle questions, to determine roommates.
“The idea we’re trying to get at with the lifestyle questions is how your room is going to be used,” said Jen Frank, assistant director of accommodations for RLHS.
A survey was e-mailed to students Wednesday looking for feedback regarding the effectiveness of the lifestyle questions posed on the current questionnaire.
Students expressed concern when asked about roommates’ social behavior. Twenty percent of students were most concerned with sleep schedules and 20 percent of students were concerned with socializing, Frank said.
Frank suggested to the council that a question be added to the questionnaire similar to, “Do you prefer that your room be a social space, study space or a little bit of both?”
“Subjectiveness of the answer is the concern,” Frank said.
Council members discussed how to fix this problem and the questionnaire, and how best to address students’ concerns about social habits in a roommate. This will be discussed further at future meetings.
In addition, the Collegiate Readership Program, which offers newspapers at two bus stops on Central and other locations across campus, was renewed at Thursday’s meeting. The program, which is co-funded by Campus Council and Duke Student Government, offers the Financial Times, The New York Times and USA Today to students free of charge.
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