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Open Meetings And Chartered Orgs

by Shawn Rice


There is a law in New York that basi­cally says that pub­lic busi­ness should be con­ducted pub­licly with enough notice to the pub­lic that any mem­ber of the pub­lic can attend to wit­ness this pub­lic busi­ness con­ducted on behalf of the pub­lic if he or she so desires. I real­ize that in that sen­tence I overuse a cer­tain word, but I believe that I’m overus­ing it to make a point. This law is known as New York State Open Meet­ings Law — or just OML, and the premise behind it seems obvi­ous and right. Since CUNY is a pub­lic uni­ver­sity, all of our busi­ness is pub­lic business.</p>

<p>We haven’t, how­ever, always been so com­pli­ant with OML. Recently, a stu­dent was barred from attend­ing a Col­lege Asso­ci­a­tion meet­ing at Hos­tos Com­mu­nity Col­lege and was arrested. This stu­dent sued the uni­ver­sity, and the uni­ver­sity lost. The case is known as <i>Perez </i>v.<i> CUNY </i>(2005). The opin­ion in <i>Perez</i> was a bit wider than just the purview of OML; it included ques­tions of quo­rum, which is the def­i­n­i­tion of the min­i­mum num­ber of vot­ing mem­bers who must be present in order for busi­ness to be con­ducted. The num­ber now works out to 50 per­cent of all seats plus one mem­ber. “All seats” hap­pens to include vacant seats as well.</p>

<p>These issues of quo­rum do mat­ter. For instance, last May, many degrees were in jeop­ardy of not being granted because a meet­ing of Grad­u­ate Coun­cil, the meet­ing in which all degrees are voted on to be accepted, didn’t make quo­rum. A spe­cial meet­ing was called in that moment of cri­sis so that those who had earned their degrees could actu­ally have them awarded that month.</p>

<p>At the DSC this year, we’ve had a strong focus on our own gov­er­nance, partly because two of the co-chairs are mem­bers of the Grad­u­ate Council’s Com­mit­tee on Struc­ture and partly for other rea­sons. There has been a flurry of activ­ity from the Con­sti­tu­tion and Bylaws Com­mit­tee, and a new ver­sion of the con­sti­tu­tion — which has been reor­ga­nized, stream­lined, and brought up to com­pli­ance with OML, in light of <i>Perez</i>—was passed at the Novem­ber 20 Ple­nary meet­ing of the DSC.</p>

<p>So, go vote on the pro­posed con­sti­tu­tion. You can find the copies of the old as well as the new and a link to vote at http://www.cunydsc.org/constitution.</p>

<p>A few other announcements</p>

<p>Don’t for­get about the free legal ser­vices pro­vided by the Cam­pus Legal Resource Net­work. Sign up for an appoint­ment on the DSC webpage.</p>

<p>There are char­tered orga­ni­za­tions that still need mem­bers to be charted: L’Atelier, Turk­ish Stu­dents Asso­ci­a­tion, Mise en Scène, Japan Study Group, Luso-Brazilian Stud­ies Group, East­ern Euro­pean Stud­ies Group, PART (Art His­tory Jour­nal), Free CUNY, Mid­dle East­ern Stud­ies Orga­ni­za­tion, and the Africa Research Group. If you have any inter­est in join­ing these orga­ni­za­tions or help­ing them get their char­ter, then please go and sign-up for them. A link can be found on the DSC web­site; oth­er­wise, point your browser to https://eballot.votenet.com/dsc/. Please go make friends: join a char­tered orga­ni­za­tion. </p>

<p>Did you know that you don’t need to pay Medicare or Social Secu­rity Tax on wages paid by an insti­tu­tion at which you go to school? What’s nicer is that you can get all those taxes that you paid back from pre­vi­ous years; just think of it as a nice check to pay for that debt you’ll incur on Black Fri­day. Here’s the process: get a let­ter from the Registrar’s Office (7201) cer­ti­fy­ing that you were a stu­dent for each semes­ter that you have taught in the CUNY sys­tem (adjunct­ing at other schools counts as well). Then go to HR at the school you’re employed at, present them the let­ters, and ask for a refund. It’ll help greatly if you have copies of your pre­vi­ous W – 2’s so that you can pro­vide them with the dol­lar amount that they owe you. If they don’t com­ply, then con­tact the IRS. There is a form on our web­site (www.cunydsc.org/forms) that you can send to the IRS. With any luck, you’ll get a fat refund.</p>

<p>Perhaps most impor­tantly as you feel the need to unwind at the end of the semes­ter: free booze! We’ll throw our annual hol­i­day party on Decem­ber 11, start­ing around 8 PM. The last one was too much of a suc­cess, and so we’re plan­ning on redou­bling our efforts and find­ing ways to fit even more peo­ple into our space in a more com­fort­able way.</p>

<p>Here is a last plea that starts in the form of a ques­tion: what do you want us to do? As rep­re­sen­ta­tives, we need to rep­re­sent you, and so, please send us issues that you find are press­ing or just ones that should be addressed. You can fil­ter them through me: dsc@​shawnrice.​org, and I’ll make sure that they are heard in the appro­pri­ate com­mit­tees. </p>

<p>Upcoming Meet­ings </p>

<p>(starting at 6pm in room 5414): </p>

<p>Plenary meet­ings — Dec. 11, 2009, Feb. 5, 2009</p>

<p>Steering Com­mit­tee meet­ings — Dec. 4, 2009, Jan. 29, 2010</p>

<p>Party: Dec. 11, 2009, start­ing at 8pm in rooms 5414 and 5409. </p></p>

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Posted by Shawn Rice on Nov 27th, 2009 and filed under DSC Page. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response by filling following comment form or trackback to this entry from your site

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