CUNY Graduate Center
Doctoral Students’ Council
Steering Committee Agenda

September 1st, 2006

Present: Michael Broder, Ericka Calton (by proxy: Chong Wojtkowski), David Golland, Aaron
Ibur, Charles Lieberman, Rouzbeh Nazari, Zeeshan Suhail (non-voting ex-officio), Brenda
Vollman, Kate Wilson, Chong Wojtkowski.

Sufficient quorum to conduct business.

Chair: CW
Minutes: DG
CW called the meeting to order at 5:30 p.m.

I. Approval of Agenda
Moved by DG; seconded by MB, unanimous approval.

II. Approval of Old Minutes
Moved as amended by BV; seconded by KW; unanimous consent.

III. Old Business
None presented.

IV. Student Affairs Report (Chong)
Orientation went well and several chartered organizations showed up to help
meet and greet new students. I was glad to see so many people helping out.
I want to focus this year on making sure students know the ways they can
benefit from Student Activity fee money, such as departmental allocations
and chartered organization funds.
Last year the SC for whatever reason neglected to do campus visits. I feel
these are integral to maintaining a cohesive bond between Off-Campus
students and us. Also we can find out what sorts of issues are important to
students. So this semester, our first scheduled campus visit is at City
College, the 29th of September, at 12pm (exact location TBA). Rousbeh and
Ericka will help out. This will be a sort of "counterpoint" to the Coffee Hour
since not everyone from CC will attend.
The Coffee Hour will be held the 28th of September, I will make fliers and
we will post them and have a sign up sheet for everyone.
The health services committee's main focus this year will surely be
insurance, since we saved the wellness center last year.

V. Communications Report (Dave)
A. Intranet. The website’s intranet has replaced the old R drive functions;
files are 95% uploaded. All current SC members have access.
B. Advocate. Dave met with the new staff in mid-August. SC members
should send him items for the DSC page.
C. Administrator Letters. Annual formal letters of introduction to the new
DSC Executive Committee have been sent to members of the senior
administration. Copies have been distributed to the Executive Committee
and are available upon request for SC members.
D. Chancellor’s Compact. Based on meetings with Vice President Schoengood,
who was meeting concurrently with president Kelly, the $253,000 of
student services money from the Compact will be divvied up as follows:
$76,000 for Travel & Research (the DSC share will be approximately
$72,000, and $177,000 for student financial assistance, based on the
following priority lists: 1)full funding of tuition remission for students
employed as adjuncts or lab techs within the CUNY system, Writing
Fellows, and Tech Fellows; 2)dissertation-year grants. It was further
agreed that the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs would
put together a plan to spend $60,000 per year on professional
development, to begin next year, assuming that the Compact would
continue. A group discussion resulted in the suggestion that students be
part of the planning for professional development, and a question to be
posed to VP Schoengood as to why some students needed Executive
Officer approval to apply for Travel & Research funds.
E. Grad Council Committees. A two-year student appointment needs to be
filled for the Structure Committee, which meets on Wednesday
mornings. The Student Services, Curriculum & Degree, and Library
Committees also need one student member each. Brenda suggested
Misha Lars for any committee that she’d be willing to sit on; Rouzbeh
volunteered to sit on the Student Services Committee. Vacancies will be
filled on a temporary basis by members of the DSC Executive Committee.

VI. Business Report (Brenda)
A. Lockers – Locker Lottery is closed as of August 25th. Dave Golland and I
worked with security to clip locks and clear out lockers. All items in
lockers were placed in bags and labeled by room and locker #. We will
store them in the SC office until the end of the term, and which time we
can find a place to donate anything that can be donated. Notices will be
post4ed as to how to retrieve items that were removed. I should have
the lockers allocated by Sept 1st.
B. Adjunct Project – we have decided to hire Carl Lindskoog (History), for
the position of Adjunct Project Coordinator (2006 – 07). He has not yet
been formally notified. As an aside – we need a better system of posted
job ads – because this ad did not include the requirement that th3e
person have prior GC adjunct or GTF experience.
We had a total of 12 applications, of which 1 withdrew at the time of
scheduling, 5 had no clearly indicated prior experience or no prior CUNY
experience (although we did interview the one with the experience but
no CUNY experience) 1 cancelled last minute, and 1 was a no-show.
That left us with a total of 4 interviews, to which the former APC
(Andrea Morrell), the current Co-Chair for Student Affairs (Chong
Wojtkowski) and the current Co-Chair for Business (Brenda Vollman)
participated in the interviews. The former APC made her
recommendations and the decisions was made to hire Carl Lindskoog.
Update – that he APC office has been reassigned to 5494 (closer to the
SC office) and is shared with the USS rep. He will have a key to the SC
office (5495) as well.
C. Stipends: Stipends will normally be available by the end of the first
week of the month, but as a result of the holiday (Labor Day) and the
day that the requests are “officially” submitted, the checks may not be
available until the 8th of Sept. I will place them in your mailbox when
they arrive.
D. Office and Meetings: Please sign –in for meeting duties for the school
year. We do not have meeting dates for Spring. Everyone should sign up
for each duty twice, and it is often more helpful to select the duty for
the SC meeting AND the Plenary Meeting. I will post this in the SC
office. Guidelines will come regarding spending for food/beverages. Be
aware that we do not take cash for movie tickets. It is a clearly stated
policy. Please make certain to record the information correctly on the
form, and be certain to keep the tickets in order when selling them. Last
– there must be a valid GC student ID # on checks, in case the check
bounces.

VII. New Business
A. USS Delegate Stipend (Brenda, Zeeshan, Charles, Dave). There is now
sufficient money in the budget to pay a stipend to the USS delegate at
the level of the members-at-large of the Steering Committee. The
stipend will entail office hours at the same level, and will be withheld
(and office hours not expected) when the USS delegate shall be elected
to the USS Steering Committee. The current USS delegate will have the
option of accepting a stipend and holding office hours because these
were not a requirement of the job at the time of his election.
B. Oaxaca Petition for Endorsement. Be it resolved that the Doctoral
Students’ Council supports the striking teachers of Oaxaca, Mexico, and
their student and indigenous supporters, in Oaxaca and elsewhere, in
non-violent, peaceful demonstrations.
Moved by DG; seconded by MB; approved 7-0-1.

VIII. Announcements
*Discussion of the fall Halloween party (Friday, 10/27) and coffee hour
(Thursday, 9/28). It was agreed that no DJ would be hired, but that the new
electronic system would be used. CL’s Community-Building Committee would
look into organizing and burning a playlist.
*Discussion of spreading out office hours.

IX. Adjournment
Moved by BV; seconded by AI. Unanimous approval.

CW adjourned the meeting at 7:20 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

DG.