The Joys of Democracy

Today's WSN carries a fascinating story on the Graduate Student Council(our student government)'s attempt to force an up or down vote on the company union.

During the senate meeting, alternate Graduate School of Arts and Science senator Roy Perez said the GSC announced unanimous opposition from its constituents to the proposal for a House of Delegates, which aims to function as the elected body of NYU’s Assembly of Graduate Students & Fellows. They say an “up or down vote” will determine whether such a body would be “an adequate, appropriate representative body.”

Among the ironies are Cate Stimpson accusing the GSC of being unnacountable:

Catherine Stimpson, dean of NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science, questioned whether the letter represented the views of the entire GSC.

“It is my understanding that a statement of unanimous opposition to the structure committee’s proposal came from the officers and not from the Council as a whole,” Stimpson said. “This is an important distinction. ... The statement that I saw was issued before there had been any physical or virtual meeting of the Graduate Student Council as a whole for this academic year.”

Stimpson said the House of Delegates could help graduate students.

“Graduate students from across the university have worked tirelessly to propose a pioneering structure for graduate assistants and fellows,” Stimpson said. “I look forward to working with the members of the House of Delegates and to the successful building of graduate student governance.”

So our elected representatives are somehow less accountable than schills the administration handpicked to create a governance structure we have no real voice in or power through. A curious argument from someone whose grievance procedures put in place after the expiration of the contract have only now shifted complaints filed in March to the "formal" stage. Meanwhile, there are folks in the English department who still haven recieved all their paychecks this year. What's particularly strange is that Dean Stimpson transferred a tiny fragment of the authority that once resided in the collective bargaining relationship to a glorified prom committee, and then, when the parent committee of the glorified prom committee starts actually attempting to represent the interests of the folks who elected them, the Dean accuses them of overstepping their authority. It's surreal.

“While they are issuing press releases, I can’t — even as an elected member of a student council and of this year’s Graduate Affairs Committee — find any accountability in this structure,” Carrington said. “A hug from the president and a fictive form of graduate-student voice would be equally magical solutions to my very real problems.”