November News from the DSC

 

The DSC is extcited to launch a listserv for all Graduate Center students this month. We hope that the DSC listserv will help students converse and exchange information across programs. To subscribe, send an email to Anne Donlon, the Co-Chair for Communications: ccc@cunydsc.org.

At the October plenary meeting, we formed two ad hoc committees. The ad hoc website committee will recommend improvements to the DSC website (cunydsc.org) which is going to be revamped. The other was an ad hoc committee on health services, which will evaluate the services available to GC students, particularly those funded by our Student Fees. Plenary also voted to revise a bylaw, changing the stipend for the University Faculty Liaison to be equal to the University Student Senate Delegate, one-half of a Grad B Fellowship. Chief Librarian Polly Thistlethwaite was our guest; she spoke about the open access movement as a response to the exorbitant cost of serial subscriptions. She chairs the University Faculty Senate Open Access Group, a committee formed with librarians, faculty, and the creators of the CUNY Academic Commons. The committee is interested in creating an open access Institutional Repository for CUNY. Polly also presented resources available on the library’s subject guide on Open Access Publishing which may be accessed at http://libguides.gc.cuny.edu/openaccess.

The DSC continues to be interested in hearing about student representation on program standing committees. Each program should have students on each of the standing committees, according to the CUNY bylaws: “The students of each doctoral program shall have responsibility through student representatives to the executive committee and the standing committees to make known their views on the policies of the program” ( 9.4.d). We’ve heard from students in various programs that faculty don’t let them stay in the meetings, or they are told the meetings are confidential, or the committees don’t meet. We’ll have a presentation on student representation on program standing committees at our next plenary meeting, November 16, 6:00pm, in room 5414.

Keep an eye out for a Graduate Center Town Hall happening later in November, hosted by the Doctoral Students’ Council and the Adjunct Project.

Provost Chase Robinson responded to a suggestion from the DSC to hold an open meeting for students. He has invited students with questions and concerns to drop by  his first “Office Hours,” which will be held on November 29, from 4:00–5:00pm in the Provost’s Conference Room, which is located inside room 8113.

Finally, Monique Whitaker, Officer for Health and Wellness encourages students to visit the Health & Wellness blog, opencuny.org/healthdsc. Students can consult it for information on what to do if they have problems with NYSHIP or other health insurance, or if they don’t have insurance, as well as to find links to disability services and info, and other health resources at the Graduate Center, CUNY more broadly, and beyond.

As always, contact DSC officers during their office hours in room 5495, by email (dsc@cunydsc.org), on twitter (www.twitter.com/cunydsc), or on Facebook (www.facebook.com/cunydsc). Our remaining plenary meetings for the semester will take place November 16 and December 14. The December meeting will be followed by a party, open to all Graduate Center students.

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