I want a Duke Student Government that is the most efficient it can possibly be.
I want a student government committed to reducing overlapping positions, defining areas of responsibility, increasing collaboration among student groups and reducing waste in both time and resources.
The Campus Council-DSG merger proposal endorsed by Campus Council last Thursday is a wonderful first step in achieving these goals. The new structure allows DSG to gain student representatives from every single dorm and a group of students who have valuable experience with the nitty-gritty of the University’s residential life. The new structure increases accountability through elections for residential governance and decreases fighting between student leaders competing for time and attention. DSG President Mike Lefevre and Campus Council President Stephen Temple have done an excellent job, via this merger, of thinking outside the box to deliver a better system of representation for students.
The DSG Senate will doubtless also approve the merger in the coming weeks. When it comes to you in referendum Feb. 15, you should vote in favor. This merger is exactly the type of arrangement that reduces overlapping positions, defines areas of responsibility and increases collaboration.
As revolutionary as it seems, the merger cannot be the end of efforts to make DSG work more efficiently.
Your student government has long been handicapped by the fact that students operate on a vastly different time horizon in their decision-making than the administrators they lobby. We claim to be mature University stakeholders that therefore deserve a seat at the table when big decisions are made. This is true; we are University stakeholders, and we absolutely do deserve a seat at every table that makes decisions affecting us. However, until our student government adopts a longer-range set of goals and principles, students aren’t likely to achieve the sort of meaningful influence we seek.
Lefevre should convene and chair a student commission to write a five-year strategic plan for student government. It is time that we enjoy a level of consistency in our student government from year to year.
The DSG strategic plan ought to start by recognizing that students are key University stakeholders. The University exists for students. Its mission is, in part, to “provide a superior liberal education to undergraduate students, attending not only to their intellectual growth but also to their development as adults committed to high ethical standards and full participation as leaders in their communities.” This campus is our community, and it’s the job of our student government, above all other student organizations, to ensure that we do, in fact, fully participate as leaders of the University.
DSG should also broadly define two objectives, which it commits to pursue in all of its activities: (1) increase student freedom and choice and (2) reduce costs to students.
The freedom imperative has many uses. Students should have increased options when it comes to dining, for example, or how they fulfill their curricular distribution requirements or how students are treated in the student judicial process. You will find that all of these initiatives have been present in every DSG presidential hopefuls’ platform for the past few years.
Articulating, formally, the principle behind these initiatives—freedom and increased choice—lends narrative consistency to advocacy efforts on our behalf.
Reducing costs for students is also of paramount importance, especially since the University is committed to a principle of “access” under which no one is denied a Duke education because of their socioeconomic status. Student government should continue to argue for an end to the so-called “emergency” increase in the dining fee and a reduction or elimination of other fees. Efforts to reduce the price of food on campus or to garner administrative support for projects like the Greek Financial Aid initiative would be advanced—and guaranteed longevity across DSG presidential administrations—by a DSG strategic plan that specifically commits student government to reduce costs to students.
A successful planning process would also pose questions about cooperation and accountability. Is the system under which DSG disburses more than $600,000 of our money a system in which we have adequate voice, in which collaboration is encouraged and in which those who misuse funds can be identified and properly punished? Do the DSG representatives on the various University and Board of Trustee committees understand their portfolios and participate in policy-making at the center? How should achievement in the DSG Senate be measured? What is the best use of a DSG president’s cabinet? How does DSG go about soliciting new ideas? These are all difficult questions deserving of thoughtful consideration and robust answers.
We deserve a government with clear goals. We deserve a government that uses strategy, not simply personality, to effect the changes we seek on campus.
Gregory Morrison is a Trinity senior. His column runs every Monday.
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