Open Meetings And Chartered Orgs
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.
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 Perez v. CUNY(2005). The opinion in Perez 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.
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.
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 Perez—was passed at the November 20 Plenary meeting of the DSC.
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.
A few other announcements
Don’t forget about the free legal services provided by the Campus Legal Resource Network. Sign up for an appointment on the DSC webpage.
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.
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.
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.
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: [email protected], and I’ll make sure that they are heard in the appropriate committees.
Upcoming Meetings
(starting at 6pm in room 5414):
Plenary meetings — Dec. 11, 2009, Feb. 5, 2009
Steering Committee meetings — Dec. 4, 2009, Jan. 29, 2010
Party: Dec. 11, 2009, starting at 8pm in rooms 5414 and 5409.
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