Graduate students who will campout for basketball tickets next month can expect shorter wait times during check-ins.
The Basketball Committee of the Graduate and Professional Student Council is introducing card readers that leaders hope will allow campers to spend less time waiting in line and lead to a faster turnaround time for the results of the ticket lottery. Other changes to the campout process this year include a new online registration system that will allow students to pay for registration with a credit card. The changes to campout were highlighted at the Graduate and Professional Student Council General Assembly meeting Tuesday evening.
“We are trying to make campout as tech friendly as possible,” said Abbe LaBella, president of GPSC.
LaBella, a Ph.D. student in the program in genetics and genomics, has participated in campout for four years. She said she thinks the technological upgrades will allow campers more time to enjoy the programming GPSC has planned for campout. This year's campout will feature a number of events including yoga sessions, study tents and a cookout carnival.
The credit card online registration was implemented as a safety concern because of the risk which the person collecting the registration fee incurs by carrying large amounts of cash.
"[Campers] will be able to do their initial Campout check-in using the barcode on their DukeCards, and during the personal checks portion of campout they will have wristbands with barcodes that we scan," said Tiffany Wilson, a Ph.D. student in Civil and Environmental Engineering who has served in a leadership role on the GPSC Basketball subcommittee for the past three years. "Both the check-in process and regular checks will be much faster and less error-prone since they will no longer require the checkers to have to locate the camper on a paper check sheet."
Wilson added that the new system will also be beneficial because it will allow campers to get in line with their friends rather than being grouped alphabetically as the paper checking system required.
“There are multiple backups of the data and at any point the committee will be prepared to revert back to paper check-ins,” LaBella wrote in an email Tuesday. “The electronic check-ins should decrease human error and decrease the amount of time students spend standing in line.”
Campout will be held between Oct. 9 and Oct. 11 in lots B5 and B7 of the Blue Zone. In order to be entered in the lottery for season tickets, campers cannot miss two checks throughout the weekend. Only 725 season tickets are available to 2,500 graduate students across all programs and schools. Registration for this year's campout will close Sept. 28 and policies can be found online.
In other business:
At Tuesday’s meeting GPSC also voted in its Young Trustee selection committee. The group also divided into caucuses, which allow students to meet in subgroups and plan initiatives surrounding 11 specific focus areas such as finance, campus integrity and diversity. In the caucus meetings several students discussed efforts to improve connections between the various graduate schools and better communicate about planned events.
Ryan Huang, a Ph.D. student in the Nicholas School of the Environment, will serve on the sustainable facilities caucus. He said he hopes to work within the facilities caucus to increase composting on several areas of West Campus, including the Bryan Center and Penn Pavilion, and advocate for better security on central campus.
As part of its effort to improve connections between Duke’s various graduate and professional schools, the GPSC also announced that it will host several social events for graduate students including two upcoming football tailgates, a Thirsty Friday at Devine’s and a Winter Formal.
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