CUNY Graduate Center
Doctoral Students’ Council
Steering Committee Minutes

October 6th, 2006

Members Present: Michael Broder, Ericka Calton, David Golland, Aaron Ibur, Charles
Lieberman, Rouzbeh Nazari (by proxy: D. Golland), Brenda Vollman, Chong
Wojtkowski (by proxy: E. Calton).

Members Absent: Zeeshan Suhail (non-voting ex-officio), Kate Wilson.

Guest present: James D. Hoff, Editor-in-Chief, Advocate

Sufficient quorum to conduct business.

Chair: EC
Minutes: MB
EC called the meeting to order at 6:12 p.m.

I. Approval of Agenda
A. Advocate Proposal was added to the agenda as item IV; subsequent
items renumbered accordingly.
1. BV moved to approve; CL seconded. Agenda approved
unanimously as amended.

II. Approval of Old Minutes
A. Minutes were reviewed and amendments were offered
1. BV moved to approve; AI seconded. Minutes approved
unanimously as amended.

III. Old Business
A. Departmental Reps
1. We have a new rep from Mathematics; MB sent an email
welcoming her as rep.
2. EC to email volunteer from Medgar Evers program (program
name?) and welcome her as rep.
3. Outreach is ongoing to programs that do not have reps.

IV. Advocate Proposal
A. James Hoff is running an open letter to Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
in the October issue of the Advocate, addressing Spitzer as the likely
next governor of New York and encouraging him to take certain
stances on particular issues of CUNY governance and administration.
He is seeking DSC endorsement of the letter and sought SC
endorsement as a preliminary step. The letter had previously been
circulated to SC members via email and an opportunity had been given
for SC input. The current draft reflected that input. The letter was read
and suggestions were made for minor revisions.
1. DG moved to endorse; MB seconded. Endorsement of letter
approved unanimously.

V. Student Affairs Report
A. Coffee Hour and Campus Visit
1. Thanks to all who helped out for the Coffee Hour and the
Campus visit to City College. Our next visit will most likely be
to Lehman College, TBA.
B. Chartered Organization Update
1. Constitutions are due this semester as well as updated rosters.
Two people have contacted CW about possibly chartering new
organizations, so we should be prepared for debate.
C. Web Update
1. If you change your office hours, please email CW so she can
put them on the website. Also, if you have problems logging
onto the intranet or the forums, let CW know.

VI. Communications Report
A. USSERC & BOT.
1. D. Golland has been elected to a second term on the University
Student Senate Elections Review Committee, which handles
appeals and certifies the election of USS officers. There are
several positions where the nominee is running unopposed; he
successfully lobbied for the ballots (which are electronic and
private, but not subsequently secret) contain provisions for
write-in candidates.
2. The Board of Trustees met on September 25, 2006, and took
the following actions which may be pertinent to GC students: a)
they extended the tenure clock to seven years; b)they awarded
an honorary doctorate in humane letters through Lehman
College to Tatsuo Tanaka; c) they accepted a gift of $28
Million from CCNY grad William E. Macauley and his wife
for the Honors College; d) they approved the purchase of a
building for the Honors College at 35 West 67th Street,
Manhattan, to be named “William E. Macauley Hall;” e) they
renamed the Honors College “The William E. Macauley
Honors College;” f) they gave the Chancellor an annual pay
raise of $15,000 ($65,000 minus $50,000 in benefits that have
been discontinued); g) they made Executive Vice Chancellor
Botman the Executive Vice Chancellor and University Provost;
h) they made Senior Vice Chancellor Dobrin Executive Vice
Chancellor and Chief Operating Officer; i) they made Vice
Chancellor Schaffer Senior Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs;
and j) they made Vice Chancellor Hershenson Senior Vice
Chancellor and Secretary of the Board Trustees, permanently
merging those two functions.
B. Grad Council IT Committee Student Nomination. Patrina Huff (Urban
Ed) and Irene Meisel (History) were presented for nomination.
1. BV moved to nominate; AI seconded. Motion passed by
majority.
C. Travel & Research Memo. D. Golland presented a memo sent from the
Executive Committee to Vice President Schoengood clarifying our
request for disbursement rule changes for the Travel & Research fund.
Schoengood has replied that it is too late in the year to change the
disbursement rules, but that he would like to discuss them with us in
the spring in order to implement changes for next year.

VII. Business Report
A. English Dept Spring Receipts
1. The English Dept had a party and the two folks who put it on
did not submit receipts in a timely fashion. They are also not
the reps. Traditionally the dept allocation is blended in with the
ESA (English Students Association) budget and they have an
annual conference in spring, and the chairs of this group also
seem to be connected with putting on other social events. Not
clear what is left for the DSC rep to do, and I suggested that
they consider making the rep a de-facto member of the ESA
board.

Anyway, apparently, the rep last year promised portions of the
departmental allocation to new lines. The two folks who were co-
chairs of ESA (one of which has submitted a check request) had
a bad working relationship with last year’s rep, and they had an
argument over the allocation of the funds.

SO, the co-chairs of last year’s ESA Board are asking for monies
which will have to come from this year’s budget.

Receipts submitted to date (from Rebekah Sheldon) total $256.99.
The departmental allocation for last year . . .

Fall Enrollment
Allocation Spring Enrollment Allocation Total $ Requested Remaining
286 $572.00 275 $550.00 $1,122.00 $621.46 $500.54

My question is: Should we allocate? How long should I give the
other person? If we do allocate, we have $4000 in the SC
discretionary fund.

EC: DSC Rep is responsible for allocations, not ESA.
CL: Since they didn’t spend their allocated $500, we should give them the $250.
AI: It’s opening a can of worms; DSC reps will start coming out of the woodwork.
EC: It doesn’t matter; they have $500 to spend.
MB: People won’t come out of the woodwork; how many old receipts are really lying
around?
CL: It’s important to maintain good relations with large programs.
BV: We’re not ready to move this now.

B. Movie Tickets
1. I purchased 500 movie tickets, at a cost of $2700. Last year
were raised the price of the movie tickets from $5.50 to $6
because wholesale prices were said to be changing or to have
changed (Fall 2005). When I purchased these tickets, I was
able to get them at $5.50 + $11 shipping and handling. I
suggest we change movie ticket prices BACK to $5.50, so we
can save students money. We do not do this for profit. We
have dipped in to the new batch of tickets (3 sold today).

DG: BV can decide to go back to $5.50 on her authority as Business Co-Chair. Suggests
we put a resolution before the Plenary that we charge the wholesale price for movie
tickets.

C. Office Duties
1. Movie tickets – how to sell – no cash, tix in order, GC id # on
form and Check . . .
2. Forms/Fliers – make sure they are current (on the table) and
available (on the wall in the hall next to the main SC office -
5495)
3. Please read the black board in 5495– it has been up all week to
make fliers for the fall party and no one had, and also to
remove the coffee hours fliers (from glass cases)
4. Call Mailroom when you come in – see if there is anything you
can pick up or let them know someone is in to receive
deliveries
5. Sign check requests
6. Look in your mailboxes for notices
7. Supplies and room issues – let me know
8. Check in on Rooms [5414,5489,5409] to make sure they are
being left clean/organized (especially the day after an event)

EC: Suggested delegating tasks more specifically.
BV: We used to have a coordinator positions.
DG: We haven’t abolished the coordinator positions from the by-laws.
BV: This is a very busy SC; we are never all in the same room at the same time; office
duties are falling through the cracks.

D. Office Hours – update schedule
1. Please review and change (pass current schedule for
handwritten changes). I will email those not present.
2. Please keep your office hours or inform via email ASAP and/or
call the office or someone’s cell to inform. Try to cover or
switch when possible.
E. Meeting Duties
1. Chair – Responsible for printing and bundling
Agendas/meeting fliers, etc – so if you have something to
present, please have it ready and available (emailed to the
Chair OR uploaded to Intranet by NOON? on the day of the
meeting)

DG: Submit items by 5pm day of meeting.
BV: DG will assemble plenary packet but the chair has to make sure all the items get to
him.
DG: For SC meetings, the chair will print up minutes and agendas

2. Food – Set up make sure you have all goods or get what is
missing
3. Minutes – You can ask the Co-chairs for their reports to fill in
the minutes. Please submit minutes within 2 weeks of the
meeting. Post to Intranet

F. Fall Party Duties(call for volunteers)
1. Music Committee: CL and EC
2. Fliers – Design: MB
3. Booze: AI (order, receive, set up; Big Blue delivers)
4. Food: DG
5. Set Up (décor): CL, ZS, CW
6. Clean Up: KW, RN

CL: Should we have a full bar?
AI: Wants liquor as well as beer and wine.
DG: Suggests chair of Community Building Committee consult his committee and look
into purchase of a moving bar
MB: Perhaps we can recruit other DSC members to help with this and other big parties

II. Communications Report Addendum
F. BOT Correspondence. D. Golland noted that the Advocate already
receives a copy of notices from the Board of Trustees; while one DSC
copy should be put in his mailbox, the other should be put in Chong’s.
G. DSC Banners. D. Golland reported that he had entered into a
discussion with facilities to hang the two banners—one at the entrance
to the hallway and the other in room 5414.

III. New Business
F. Meeting with Bob Campbell – Student Feedback (DG reported)
1. Be on the lookout for white (old) computers; should all be
black (new); Discussed how long should email remain in in-
box before it is archived. Maybe the DSC should buy a laptop
for use at meetings.
2. Questions to be addressed:
a. Should student passwords never expire?
b. If they must, how long between resets?
c. If they must, can they be reset by phone?
d. Can students take responsibility for email forwarding?
e. Should student printers default to duplex?

IV. Announcements
EC: City College campus visit went well; good attendance, good feedback. EC will not
be here for Halloween Party.

V. Adjournment
F. AI moved to adjourn; CL seconded. EC adjourned the meeting at 8:27
p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
MB.