- Shuttle busses will run from Duke's campus to polling places during early voting.
- K-Ville policy includes requirements that trash be cleaned up 90 minutes prior to tip-off and that one-third of a group's tent must always be present.
- The student activities fee was proposed to be raised slightly, which was protested due to the existence of DSG surplus funds.
Duke Student Government approved a statute to fund shuttles to polling places for the upcoming midterm elections.
At the DSG meeting Wednesday night, sophomore Tanner Lockhead, senator for Durham and regional affairs, proposed a budgetary statute to allocate $2,500 from the surplus fund to provide shuttles to polling locations for Duke students. The funds will support a 12-passenger van that will run from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 28 through Thursday, Oct. 30—the days for early voting—and from 12:00 to 7:00 p.m. on Nov. 4, Election Day.
Although he requested $2,500, Lockhead said that the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership and the Office of Durham and Regional Affairs have committed $1,000 towards this cause, and that as soon as this money comes through, $1,000 of the $2,500 provided by DSG will be returned to the surplus fund in order to minimize the financial impact of this initiative on DSG. He also said that any money provided by DSG that is not used to pay for the shuttles will be returned to the surplus fund.
Additionally, DSG approved the Krzyzewskiville policy for this year. Line monitors are responsible for checking that groups tenting and waiting for game tickets are present and following rules to ensure the ticket distribution process is fair.
This year’s K-Ville policy establishes that, as in years past, one-third of a tenting group must always be present in K-Ville and that line monitors do not support or sponsor any student group activities, which may be present in K-Ville as long as they do not interfere with game-day operations. Policy states that students are responsible for distinguishing or removing personal items 90 minutes before the start of each game, when a professional staff will remove trash from the area.
The line monitors also released dates and general occupancy breakdowns for the various levels of tenting for the February game against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Black tenting will begin Jan. 8, approximately five weeks before the game. The walk-up ticket line will open on Sunday, Feb. 15, three days before the game.
Other rules maintain that reasons for expulsion from Cameron Indoor Stadium immediately before and during basketball games include excessive intoxication and false credentials.
A statute establishing the student activities fee, which is paid by every student as part of their tuition, for the 2015-16 school year was introduced by Executive Vice President Abhi Sanka, a junior, who proposed that the fee rise from $126.50 to $128.65 in order to keep up with the inflation rate, about 1.7 percent.
This statute was met with fervent opposition from Senator for Services Max Schreiber, a junior, who explained that the fee should not rise due to the money DSG has in the surplus fund.
“We have all of this money, and it’s just sitting there because it’s not in a real bank, and it's losing value every day that we don’t spend it,” explained Schreiber in an interview after the meeting. “If we’re asking the people to give more money because things are getting more expensive, and we’re simultaneously losing money because we’re not using it, we might as well use that money to cover the loss from prices going up.”
Schreiber motioned to table the statute until next week in order to discuss it more thoroughly. The motion passed.
In other business:
Senator for Academic Affairs Annie Adair, a sophomore, introduced a statute to create a “synergy committee." This would serve as a think-tank composed of senators from different committees who would report to each other about the projects of their individual committees to ensure collaboration between groups. Opposition to the statute portrayed it as redundant and bureaucratic, but supporters explained that it would help get more senators involved and give them a voice, particularly inexperienced first-year senators. The senate voted to a deadlock, and Sanka used his tie-breaking vote in favor of the statute.
Vice President of Services Billy Silk, a junior, and Senator for Services John McMichael, a sophomore, introduced a statute to create the Duke University Student Health Advisory Committee, which will confront issues related to student health and advise Student Health on improvements and modifications to the existing student health system. DSG approved the statute.
The selection committee for the Young Trustee Nomination Committee was selected. This committee will choose students to serve on a panel to select finalists for the Young Trustee position.
DSG approved funding for two club programming requests—$2,000 for the Duke East Asian Nexus, which is bringing in the director of a documentary about the Cultural Revolution for a panel discussion, and $3,600 for Duke Mock Trial, which is holding a tournament in the Durham County courthouse.
Additionally, DSG recognized four groups—Project Tadpole, which repairs and modifies toys for children with disabilities; the Aikido Club, a group devoted to the Japanese martial art; the Japanese Culture Club, which will spread awareness and advocate for Japanese culture; and the Research Scholars Program, which provides a mentoring service for students doing research.
An earlier version of this article stated that line monitors had introduced a policy requiring students to clean K-Ville of trash 90 minutes prior to game time. Rather, a professional staff is responsible for cleaning the area before the game. Additionally, a previous version stated that the only tenting date set for the Carolina game was the start date for the walk-up line. All tenting dates have been set for the game. The Chronicle regrets the error.
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