The three candidates competing to be Duke Student Government executive vice president all agree on one issue—student relations with DSG need improvement.
Sophomores Price Davidson, Jane Moore and Pete Schork hope to implement policies to make operations more transparent and facilitate student partnership. All three candidates have served on DSG’s athletics and campus services committee for the past two years. Schork is currently vice president for athletics and campus services.
The winner of the election will be responsible for presiding over DSG’s weekly Senate meetings and directing all legislation.
Davidson, who is also DSG’s president pro-tempore, is committed to improving relations with students by soliciting their input. He also hopes to unify the Senate in order to increase legislative efficiency.
“I’m really going to reach out to see what [the students] want to do with DSG, and what DSG can do for them,” he said.
Davidson, a biology and Spanish double major, also hopes to make Duke a “green” campus by promoting environmental initiatives. As a DSG senator, he worked to implement more energy efficient lighting in campus buildings.
“I have the ability to pull from Duke’s various departments and [help them] work as a unit and find methods to improve campus life and to build upon Duke’s most important initiatives,” he said.
Moore said she brings a fresh perspective to the executive vice president position. She plans to reach out to students by encouraging senators to hold extended “office hours” in popular locations like bus stops and campus eateries. In the future, she said she would like to see DSG become the “face of the student body.”
“Right now, there’s a disconnect between them. [DSG is] not really a part of their lives,” she said. “I want to help foster better communication and get tangible results.”
Moore, a political science major, added that she plans to increase communication between students and Dining employees by hosting open forums.
“Worker-student relations—it’s not a good situation to me,” Moore said. “[Improvement] is going to have to start from above in DSG.”
Schork said his role as vice president for athletics and campus services has effectively prepared him for the executive vice president position. The public policy studies major noted that his volunteer experience last summer with the Service Opportunities in Leadership program, doing environmental organizing in Chicago, made him a better listener—something he feels is vital to the position.
Although Schork thinks DSG has done an adequate job of representing students interests, he said he sees room for improvement. If elected, Schork said he plans to increase Senate productivity and create an executive council with representatives from multiple student groups.
“Really what I’m looking at is, how can DSG elevate its influence?” Schork said. “How can it become a more impactful organization? How can it really start to deal with the weighty issues that you’ve seen in this paper over the last year?”
Elections for DSG president and executive vice president will take place March 30.
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