A small audience of approximately 15 students gathered for an hour-long question and answer session with current and future Young Trustees Thursday night.
Outgoing Young Trustee Ben Abram, Pratt ’07, current Young Trustee Sunny Kantha, Trinity ’09 and Young Trustee-elect John Harpham, a senior, made up the panel for the informal session, which doubled as a meet and greet. The event was organized by DSG Executive Vice President Gregory Morrison, a junior, and sophomore Lauren Moxley, DSG senator for student affairs and chair of the Young Trustee nominating committee.
“I think that students need to have the opportunity to physically communicate with the young trustees,” Morrison said. “It personalizes the names that you read in the paper.”
Morrison and Moxley asked the young trustees for a panel discussion, as the Board of Trustees meeting this weekend called the two current young trustees into town. Both feel face to face communication with the trustees is important to emphasize their roles as part of the student body.
“I think it’s important in terms of transparency for students to have the opportunity to ask questions,” Moxley said.
Despite the low attendance, both the hosts and the trustees said the panel was a success. Civic engagement, campus culture and segregation and women’s housing were among the topics discussed. The size of the audience allowed for a discussion, as opposed to a question and answer panel.
“It was a conversation and the conversation was very informative both for students and the young trustees,” Morrison said. “I think in that sense this was the most productive forum we could have had even though there weren’t 50 people.”
Each of the trustees emphasized the importance of having a background of student life to help bolster their experiences on the board.
“We have a good sense after four years of what undergraduates face,” Kantha said. “Coming back to Duke helps you approach issues from a different perspective, and it’s illuminating to have student experience as a backlight.”
The panel was well received by the students in attendance, several of whom were DSG senators who were curious about the role of the young trustees insofar as student life was concerned.
“It definitely cleared up a lot of ambiguity in terms of what the young trustees are actually thinking about,” freshman Gordon Wilson, a DSG senator for Durham and regional affairs, said. “It was refreshing for me to know that these issues of campus culture and inequity in terms of gender, race and marginalization were on the forefront of their minds.”
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