Looking Ahead; Election Results

Looking to 2008-09

We’ve taken a moment to consider the accomplishments of the last year as we contemplate new ways to continue to improve student life at the Graduate Center.

We instituted an online elections process that reduced costs dramatically (postage alone was over $4000!) and yielded additional nominations and an over 7.7% voting turnout — a roughly 50% increase from last year! We’re thrilled by the turnout — showing our students care about participating in the democratic process of their representation — and we are already thinking about ways to improve it for next year!

The DSC has revamped its website, creating a more streamlined resource for students (visit www.cunydsc.org for many of your DSC needs!). In doing do, we reduced web operating costs over 70% while creating a more efficient back-end system — and we integrated this reduction into the 2008-09 budget!

We’ve welcomed the addition of five new chartered organizations (CUNY Women in Science, Engineering and Math; Early Modern Interdisciplinary Group; The GC Poetics Group; The Spatial Scholars Group; and The Eastern European Studies Group)! See www.cunydsc.org for more information on how you can charter your new organization!

We’ve responded to the Master Plan under consideration, and lobbied with Acting Provosts Edwards and Wrigley on meeting graduate student needs in the CUNY vision for the next four years.

We’ve worked to obtain health insurance for our graduate students, including lobbying efforts in Albany and participation in a rally outside the Graduate Center, and funding the massive letter-writing campaign spearheaded by the DSC Adjunct Project.

We’ve worked with Student Affairs to resolve the Wellness Center crisis, and implemented stopgap services. As this has dragged on all year, we’ve worked with Student Affairs to begin the development of safeguards to ensure this doesn’t happen again, including participating in the interview process for the new Nurse Practitioner.

We prevented the switch to Windows Live Hotmail by devising a White Paper in strong opposition to Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of our email services. We will continue to work to ensure a fair email system is created for graduate students. Go to www.cunydsc.org/email to read the history of the Microsoft situation, see our White Paper, sign our petition, and keep abreast of ongoing developments.

We’ve negotiated an extension of Travel & Research funds through the Office of Student Affairs, with pending additional funds from the DSC, to support the increased need for support of our community as it exercises its travel & research needs at the GC, across CUNY, and at conferences across this country!

Working with Mina Rees archivist John Rothman, we established the DSC archives in the Mina Rees Archive area. Indexing has begun, and the DSC (Area VIII to you budding researchers!) will have an operational archive in Fall 2008!

We secured a grant from the University Student Senate to provide additional funding to the Child Care Center.

We campaigned for and secured increased student representation on the Provost Search Committee.

Acting on the needs of our community, we helped establish two nursing rooms in the pantries on Floors 3 & 8 which offer our nursing mothers additional private spaces to attend to their children’s needs while at the Graduate Center.

We’ve sold over 600 movie tickets, held three wildly successful parties, two caffeinated coffee hours, achieved quorum at every meeting while maintaining membership at over 80% of possible seats filled with certified members, funded 28 Cultural Affairs & Professional Development grants, and contributed lots of door prizes to this year’s Wellness Festival.

We added this additional issue of the GC Advocate, making a grand total of four issues this semester, and seven issues in the 2007-8 academic year. We also approved seven issues for next academic year, so keep looking out for fresh copies of the Advocate!

Keep looking out for ways the DSC is serving you: check the DSC news in the GC Advocate, Check out our website, www.cunydsc.org, or attend our meetings and events, which are advertised in the GC Advocate and on our website.

And if there’s more we can do — if there’s more you want to do — talk to us. Drop by room 5495. Call x7888. Email dsc.steering.committee@gmail.com. Come to a meeting (see dates/times below). Talk to your rep—or fill an opening in your department and become a rep.

Results: 2008-09 dsc elections!

For more about the positions and their responsibilities, please see http://cunydsc.org/vote. For updated elections results as they happen, check http://cunydsc.org/index.php/2008-9results. The below results are as of 5/8/08. 337 votes were cast, representing over 7.7% turnout.

All results are listed in descending order of vote total.

Faculty/Student Disciplinary Panel:

Alissa Ackerman, Gregory Donovan, Crystal Rodriguez, Stephanie Domenici, Carolina Barrera-Tobon, Nazreen Bacchus

Media Board:

Denise Torres, Gregory Donovan

SERC:

Brenda Vollman, Alissa Ackerman, Carolina Barrera-Tobon

Department Academic Appeals Officers

Anthropology: TBA
Biology-PhD Program: Rachel Meyer
Biomedical Eng-PhD Program: TBA
Biopsy/Behvr Neuro-PhD Program: Gayle Serlin
Civil Eng-PhD Program: Rouzbeh Nazari
Classics-PhD Program: Michael Broder
Comparative Lit-PhD Program: Leah Anderst
Computer Science-PhD Program: Jeremy Seideman
Criminal Justice-PhD Program: Meghan Sacks
English: TBA
Environmental Psych-PhD Prog: Desiree Fields
Hisp/Luso Braz L&L-PhD Program: Carolina Barrera-Tobon
History-PhD Program: Arto Artinian
Political Science-PhD Program: TBA
Social Welfare-PhD Program: Denise Torres
Sociology-PhD Program: Nazreen Bacchus
Departments without student Academic Appeals Officers: Art History, Audiology, Biochemistry, Business, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Cog, Brain & Behvr, Developmental Psychology, Earth & Env Sci, Economics, Educational Psychology, Electrical Engineering, Forensic Psychology, French, German, Industrial/Org Psychology, Learning Processes, Linguistics, MALS, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Music DMA, Music PhD, Neuropsychology, Nursing, Philosophy, Physical Therapy, Physics, Public Health, Social Personality, Speech/Hearing Sciences, Theatre, Urban Education

DSC Departmental Representation

Anthropology (2): Christine Pinnock, Mariya Radeva
Art History (2): Whitney Thompson, TBA
Biochemistry (1): Richard Able
Biology (3): Oren Tzfadia, Samantha Sheppard, Kathleen Schnaars Uvino
Chemistry (1/2): TBA
Classics (1): Jared Simard
Comparative Literature (2): Anick Boyd, Anna Finkelstern
Computer Science (2): Jeremy Seideman, Suzanne Tamang
Criminal Justice (2): Julie Viollaz, Tasha Youstin
Earth and Environmental Science (1): TBA
Engineering: Biomedical (1): Xiang (Ian) Gu
Engineering: Chemical (1): Mehrdad Kheiripour
Engineering: Civil (1): Rouzbeh Nazari
English (3): Jill Belli, Allyson Foster, Amanda Springs
French (1): Chong Wojtkowski
Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Lit (2): Efrain Cardenas, Teresa Berenice Darwich
History (2): Igor Draskovic, Anton Masterovoy
Linguistics (1): Elizabeth Pratt
Mathematics (1/2): TBA
Music-PhD (2): Inessa Bazayev, Rachel Lumsden
Nursing Science (1): TBA
Philosophy (2): Kyle Ferguson, Chris Sula
Political Science (2): Aaron Ibur, Patricia Stapleton
Public Health (1): TBA
Psychology: Bio (1): Preston Foerder
Psychology: Developmental (1): TBA
Psychology: Environmental (1): Stephanie Domenici Cabonargi
Psychology: Forensic (1): TBA
Psychology: Industrial and Organizational (1): Kimberly Iaffaldano
Psychology: Learning Processes (1): Matthew Taylor
Psychology: Social Personality (1): Stephanie Anderson
Social Welfare (1): Larry Iannotti
Sociology (2): Nazreen Bacchus, TBA
Speech & Hearing Services (1): TBA
Theatre (1): Frank Episale
Urban Education (2): TBA (2)

DSC At-large Representation (22):

Rob Faunce, Denise Torres, Gregory Donovan, Ericka Calton, Brenda Vollman, Lauren Klein, Armin Lahiji, Karyn Collie, Pamela Proscia, Boris Daussa Pastor, John DeCarlo, Charles Lieberman, Taylor Kennamer, Ethan Zadoff, Phillip Kopp, Linda Neiberg, Ian Foster, Neil Meyer, Rachel Meyer, Robert Azzarello, Andrew Dicus, TBA

Open seats for departmental representation (18):

Audiology (1), Business (1), Chemistry (1/2), Economics (1), Engineering: Electrical (1), Engineering: Mechanical (1), German (1), Liberal Studies (1), Mathematics (1/2), Music-DMA (1), Physical Therapy (1), Physics (1), Psychology: Clinical (1), Psychology: Cognition, Brain, Behavior (1), Psychology: Cognitive Neuroscience (1), Psychology: Educational (2), Psychology: Neuropsychology (1).