CUNY Graduate Center
Doctoral Students’ Council
Steering Committee Minutes

April 7, 2006

Present: Celia Braxton, Ericka Calton, Stephanie Domenici, Moira Egan, David H.
Golland, Lee Hachedoorian, Tina Lee, Brenda Vollman (by proxy: Charles Lieberman),
Chong Wojtkowski, Charles Lieberman (ex-officio, non-voting).
Quorum sufficient to conduct business.

Chairperson: Chong J. Wojtkowski
Minutes: Ericka Calton

Meeting called to order at 6:15 pm

I. Approval of Agenda- with two additions (IX, D passed but hasn’t been contested due
to questions about quorum – T.L.; IV. A. Moira’s name is misspelled – L.H.; VII. The
purpose of the trip to Albany was to support the CUNY compact. S.D. did a campus
visit to Queens and there are no more scheduled – S.D.) C.L. motioned to approve, T.L.
seconded, unanimous consent

II. Approval of Old Minutes
A. March 10, 2006 – unanimous consent

III. Old Business
A. Voting – D.G. presented the issue of voting for students with disabilities,
particularly for at-large votes; M.E. mentioned that we should address concerns
of students asked who want to vote via email and perhaps we should have that
student contact Sharon or Elise; C.B. suggests that we ask Elise about this;
According to T.L. the constitution says that elections must be done by mail. T.L.
will contact Elise to find out the particulars; L.H. mentioned that if other groups
want to use online elections, then perhaps they’d be willing to help pay for
instituting the system.; T.L. says that participation is low and we can always write
our name in at any time. D.G. says the name must be filled in at the correct
places on the DSC Steering Committee spreadsheet, which is just for our
notekeeping purposes; C.W. offered to write up an instructional sheet to avoid
future confusion.

IV. Business Report (Tina)
A. Movie Tickets - D.G. moved that the S.C. authorizes T.L. to purchase movie
tickets online using her personal credit card. T.L. will get reimbursed for the
money and the tickets will be sold as usual; C.L. seconded; T.L. recused; motion
passed
B. Webmaster Stipend/Hours – Camille has spent $2400 of her stipend and is
budgeted for $5200. She expects to use more hours than previously thought.
The S.C. will present to the plenary that we use special allocation funds to pay if
Camille goes overbudget.

V. Student Affairs Report (Stef)
A. Funding Issues – the Writing Fellowship will be lowered to $18,500 in the future.
This would be bad since A) taking tax money and putting it somewhere else (like
recruitment packages) where it isn’t equal access (small committee would decide
who gets the money and only incoming students would receive funds). C.B. noted
that when the money is lowered, the cost of tuition and the cost of living would
be increased and this makes no sense. S.D. mentioned that the argument by the
admin. is that when people drop out in their 2nd and 3rd years, more money would
be available; but this is unfair because people should not have to wait for
someone to drop out. The big question is: will the number of fellowships decrease
with a concomitant decrease in money, resulting in no change in funding or
availability?
B. AEB and RA – we have no information about when the contract for Restaurant
Association ends and S.D. will look into this next week. T.L. will start at the
business office. M.E. mentioned that the College of Staten Island has a good,
subsidized cafeteria plan. S.D. thinks that we shouldn’t compare RA to other
CUNY cafeterias, but if we do, we should compare to City College. We should
look at how they can best serve us and which companies know about appropriate
licensing for various events. The prices for RA are high. S.D. wants to get
suggestions from the plenary about this issue. D.G. stated that Carrie, a former
AEB co-chair, will be away for a while and moves that C.L. replaces Carrie if
available. T.L. seconded. Unanimous consent.
C. Support CUNY – S.D. noted that the email announcement that was sent from the
chancellor was obscured through all of the forwarded text in the email and we
should ask Camille to post the announcement body on the website and resend the
message with a link to the website and a different subject line in the email.

VI. Communications Report (Dave)
A. Absentee Reps – after the March Plenary, D.G. contacted 6 reps that had missed
3 meetings in a row without prior notification to the S.C.: 1) resigned (Ed. Psych),
2) responded (Ed. Psych), 3) Nora G. agreed to blanket proxy for the next two
meetings (Clin. Psych), 4) no positive response and there is only 1 rep (Comp. Sci.),
5) Antonia Levy hasn’t replied at all but we’ll let her have a pass (Sociol.), 6)
Emily Mahon (dept. ?) has never attended a meeting and responded to D.G. on
4/1/06. L.H. motions to remove Emily Mahon, no second.
B. Webmaster Hiring/Rehiring – The hiring team (L.H., E.C., C.W., D.G., B.V., C.L.)
will convene around mid-May. Advertisements will be posted in the April
Advocate and we will encourage Camille to reapply.
C. Website & Forum – the website has migrated. Bulletin boards are up. Guests
cannot post, but anyone can register and can then post; we may change this
option in the future. We want to track IP addresses for people since there are
security-sensitive issues on the site. We still need to get the R drive functioning
on the new site.

VII. Health Committee Report (Ericka/Celia)—the next Health Issues Committee (HIC) is
4/28/06 at 5 pm (before the plenary). E.C. sent an email to the committee members
earlier today. C.W. got information from her APO about a health fair.

VIII. USS Report (Charles)—As of 4/11/06, if we do nothing regarding the USS fee
increase, it will take effect. The USS says they will send all information to student
governments and they’d each get votes like an electoral college. If we want to initiate
a court preceding (under Perez v. CUNY), we must do this before 4/11/06. C.L.
corresponded with Steve Diamond at CUNY Law about Article 78. C.L. says that
under Perez v. CUNY, the losing side pays the court costs. The Steering Committee
has decided to take action: C.L. will contact Steve Diamond, L.H. will contact the
original attorney for Perez v. CUNY (McGuire), M.E. will contact Schaffer’s office on
Monday. T.L. moved that the DSC opposes the USS fee increase and is willing to take
the steps necessary, including but not limited to legal actions, to question the
legitimacy of said fee increase. C.W. seconded, D.G. abstained, motion passed.

IX. New Business
A. Party Remarks (Chong)—we must do better advertising for parites. C.B. says
fliers should be posted on every board on every floor and in the cafeteria 2
weeks prior to the party and they must be checked 1 week prior to make sure
nothing is covering them. M.E. stated that the word “snacks” on the flier was
misleading. E.C. says we should post fliers on the various CUNY campuses. S.D.
notes that from a psychological point of view, it is better to make the fliers all
the same color for a single party so that they are recognizable and people will
relate the fliers with the party if they see them often.
B. Lockers—Charles said we should make an announcement that lockers will be
cleared and the DSC should distribute them on a semester-by-semester basis.
C.B. said that it should be for an academic year because the semester is too
short. C.W. pointed out that the French APO used a first-come first-served
policy and preference was given to first year students. C.W. will draft an email
with a deadline of May 31 for notifying students about the lockers. C.B. thinks
people should apply for the lockers and we shouldn’t do it by just first-come
first-served, although we should reserve a certain number of lockers for
incoming students. D.G. suggested that the co-chair for Business Management be
responsible for administrating the locker policy. T.L. said that we should do by
form submission, similar to the method we use for room requests; she will adapt
an existing form. L.H. said we should do this in September instead of May. D.G.
suggested an annual lottery and let entering students know during orientation (a
Steering Committee member will attend orientation). C.W. said we should post
this on the website. S.D. said we should put a locker policy statement in new
student packets.
C. No other new business

X. Announcements—S.D. said we should present ideas about improving the Steering
Committee at the next Steering Committee meeting

T.L. moved to adjourn; D.G. seconded.

Meeting was adjourned at 7:59 pm.
Respectfully Submitted, Ericka F. Calton