Duke Student Government senators met Wednesday to listen to changes to SOFC funding, reiterate expectations on how senators approach project work and give project updates.
Junior Ayanna Chatman, executive chair of the Student Organization Finance Committee, presented SOFC’s goals and structure and discussed recent changes to SOFC operations.
SOFC funding pools have been split into two main groups: a programming fund for events that are open to all Duke undergraduates, and an operational and capital fund that may fund events that can be closed for only group members.
SOFC also released a new self-auditing form that must be completed after events in order to retain eligibility for funding. A new SOFCHub is on the DSG website to give more detail on these funds and forms.
This form was created in response to “a disconnect between what student groups were using and what they weren’t,” Chatman said, while also aiming to help groups “self assess how well [groups] events are going.”
Chatman explained that these guidelines were put in place in order to ensure that “money is distributed in the most equitable way possible” so that “everyone has access to the right funding at the right time.”
Executive Vice President Ashley Bae, a senior, and sophomore Akshay Gokul, diversity, equity and inclusion chair, iterated that senators should be accountable for their actions and consistently talk to their fellow students in considering project work, while also highlighting the basics of what project work entails.
“It’s really important to contextualize DSG privilege and your role within that,” said Gokul while addressing the senate floor. “At the end of the day, you’re a student first … make sure that the role of senator is complementary to that.”
Several committees gave updates on their projects.
The academic affairs committee reported continued success on their new project, Blue Devil Bridges, a program designed to connect Duke students with Duke alumni from multi-cultural groups in various fields. The committee intends to reach out to 40,000 alums. The committee also briefly touched on their continued work on reviving GRUNCH, a program in which Duke undergraduates could eat lunch with graduate students.
The campus life committee will have an upcoming meeting with the parking and transportation department to discuss any issues that students may have.
The Durham community affairs committee gave announcements in regards to how voting would work in the upcoming municipal elections. Due to a new law passed by the North Carolina state government, students who are not from North Carolina can only use their driver’s licenses if they registered in North Carolina within 90 days of the election. Duke Student Voter ID cards can be obtained through Duke via the Duke Votes website.
The equity and outreach committee detailed their work with Duke LIFE, a group dedicated to assisting students who are first generation college students and come from lower-income backgrounds. They hope to better utilize Duke LIFE’s current space inside of the Perkins Library.
The services and sustainability committee highlighted their continued work with the Undergraduate Environmental Union in including climate change in the future Duke curriculum.
In other business
Junior Nicole Read was sworn in as a senator for the services and sustainability committee.
DSG senators allocated $5,000 dollars to the pilot projects fund to assist in funding various pilot project initiatives over the year and $2,000 to the LGBTQIA+ students mental health support group to fund weekly, one-hour group therapy sessions for the remaining eight weeks of the fall semester.
Chief of Staff Chase Barclay, a senior, detailed potential collaborations with International Student Affairs on the international blue book, a resource used during move-in. Furthermore, Barclay stated that the renaming of the Gender Violence Prevention and Intervention Center to the Gender Violence Education and Outreach Office (GVEO).
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Jeremiah Fang is a Trinity sophomore and a staff reporter for the news department.