The Duke Student Government (DSG) recently launched a new program, the DSG Research Unit, to study campus issues and help the DSG make more informed decisions on campus policies. We interviewed Abhi Sanka, the DSG Executive Vice President, to find out more about the research program. Please tell us your name and current position in student government. Please also tell us a little bit about who you are: your year, major, any other background info you’d like to share. My name is Abhi Sanka and I am the current Executive Vice President of Duke Student Government. As Executive Vice President, my responsibility is to broadly oversee week-to-week management of Student Government’s operations, and preside over our Student Government Senate. I am a Junior at Duke, pursuing a major in Public Policy and a Certificate in Genome Sciences and Policy. This past summer I interned at the Institute of Medicine on the Roundtable for Translating Genomic Based Research into Health, and my academic passions lie in politics, health policy, and personalized medicine. How did you come up with the idea for the DSG Research Unit? The idea dawned upon me when I spent this past summer interning at the Institute of Medicine. The IOM, which is part of the National Academy of Sciences, prides itself in evidence-based decision making. I realized that in Student Government, many of our discussions were very qualitative and we lacked a true evidence base guiding our decisions. My time at the IOM inspired me to start the DSG Research Unit immediately within the first two weeks of coming back to campus. Please describe the DSG Research Unit. What will it do? How will it function? The mission of the DSG Research Unit is to gather data on campus issues and quantitatively review different aspects of student life to directly inform the policymaking process within DSG. One of Duke’s mottos is “Knowledge in the Service of Society,” and my vision for the research unit is to gather knowledge in the service of our society – the larger Duke community. The Student Government Senate commissioned the Research Unit with an initial set of questions. For the remainder of this semester, the Research Unit is tasked with developing study methods to answer these questions, and next semester they will be implementing these studies, gathering data and producing reports. These reports will then inform future student government policy initiatives. The Research Unit is led by a Director, Kshipra Hemal, and has a team of 12 other investigators who each take ownership of specific study projects. Here are the founding documents of the Research Unit, if anyone would like to see more detail of the Unit’s structure and function. What are the first projects the DSG Research Unit will work on? The Student Government Senate gave the Research Unit a first set of projects to consider. These are some of the most pressing issues on campus that persist year after year and require concrete evidence in order to be addressed effectively. They include:
  • What knowledge do students currently have about Women’s Center resources?
  • How do socioeconomic status and sexual orientation affect students’ decisions to rush, join, and remain in Greek organizations?
  • Is the food point allocation in the First-Year meal plan sufficient for the majority of first-years?
  • What do students look for in an ideal curriculum?
What have been the biggest challenges so far? Biggest Surprises? Lessons Learned? Our Research Unit is still in its early phases, and there haven’t been any major challenges so far. In fact, this has probably been the biggest surprise. Establishment of the Research Unit was received with widespread praise on campus, from our administration to our school newspaper’s editorial board. (You can find some of the campus articles here). People are really excited about this new initiative since data is changing our society in so many ways. We’re really happy to capitalize on that in Student Government. What advice would you give to student leaders at other schools who want to establish their own research unit? Seek out and harness the resources that you may have on campus. We hired some of the most brilliant students on campus, many of them upperclassmen, with strong backgrounds in statistics and quantitative research skills to conduct research. You will find motivated and passionate students who bring a different skill set to the table but the same willingness to make an impact on your community.