It’s 2008 and my sources tell me the time is nigh for The Chronicle to let go of our ink-and-paper ways and go virtual. So here I am.

It’s taken me a while—don’t get me wrong. But now I’m setting my inky fingers to the keyboard and trying something new. It is a bit liberating, actually, but immensely frightening all the same. When you do newspaper writing long enough the prospect of composing something without a lede, nutgraph or the requisite Paul Slattery/Larry Moneta quotes can be quite intimidating.

That said we’ve opened this blog not to escape our newspaper ways, but to improve on them. Top of the Tower is a forum where The Chron’s news editorial staff can begin to think critically about the stories we write and issues we (hope we) raise, and that can only be a good thing, as far as I can see. We don’t want to convince you of anything or spit opinions at you from our, well, Gothic tower. But we do want to ask questions and perhaps be the “tower of campus thought and action” our flag says we are.

On to the issue at hand: Young Trustee selections. Last year, Jordan Giordano, Duke Student Government’s executive vice president, split with tradition in amending the bylaws that govern the process so as to increase the Intercommunity Council’s role in the selection of the Young Trustee. Previously the system had been largely controlled by DSG, which had the final say in each year’s selection, and often encountered problems only natural to a process that puts one group of students in charge of judging a group of their peers and, often, colleagues. The result was a number of Young Trustees hailing from the undergraduate student body’s biggest student organizations, including many from within the ranks of DSG, itself. Giordano’s amendments put the Young Trustee Nominating Committee—now composed of a 50/50 combination of DSG and ICC members—in charge of the full process and killed a former provision that allowed candidates normally included in the YTNC to choose their replacements to serve on the committee. The changes were intended to reduce conflicts of interest in the YTNC, granting the winner of the honor a replenished sense of legitimacy.

So, one year later, we find ourselves asking whether Giordano’s changes worked. This year’s semifinalists included the presidents of DSG, the Union, Campus Council, the Honor Council, the senior class and the Panhellenic Association and all three finalists were from among that group. Is it true that the students most capable of representing Duke undergrads are already in major leadership roles on campus, or is the problem that our process fails to identify talented leaders from the larger campus scene? And can a process that puts one group of students in charge of judging their peers ever be without conflicts of interest and some degree of cronyism?

And just when it gets interesting, that’s where we stop.  Why? Well, for one, I can’t say I know the answers to those questions. Plus, I have to leave something to be desired in the pages before the Sudoku every day.

–Shreya Rao, News Editor