At the February 15 Doctoral Students’ Council plenary meeting, representatives unanimously endorsed a resolution affirming student rights with regard to the Robert E. Gilleece Student Center: “The Doctoral Students’ Council affirms its permanent location and complete use of space in the Robert E. Gilleece Student Center located on the fifth floor of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.” The Gilleece Student Center is comprised of student lounges, conference rooms, computer lab, and the offices of dozens of interdisciplinary chartered organizations, the Doctoral Students’ Council, the Adjunct Project, the Fundraising and Alumni Commission, OpenCUNY, and the Advocate. At the beginning of the semester, the DSC learned that the administration had last year applied for capital money to create a “Student Services Center” which they envisioned on the C-level of the library. In a meeting this semester with the DSC Executive Committee, Provost Chase Robinson presented a plan to combine that “Student Services Center” plan with removing the DSC and student-controlled space from the fifth-floor and relocating students to that C-level library space. The library C-level currently houses a large computer lab used by students, several computer classrooms, the institutional archives, and reading rooms. The Executive Committee met again with the provost in the first week of March, reviewed the resolution, objected to the loss of total student-used space at the GC their proposed plan would effect, and emphasized the importance of student-controlled space. There was no further indication in that meeting whether the administration was going to pursue moving the DSC.
The DSC’s Parental Leave Working Group has been advocating for the Graduate Center to develop a parental leave policy for all Graduate Center students. President Kelly mentioned at his Community Meeting that there has been movement toward establishing a policy, and one should be in place by September. At that meeting, he stated the September plan would be limited to a childbirth maternity leave. According to a later meeting with Associate Provost Louise Lennihan and Vice-President for Student Affairs Matt Schoengood, this plan is not yet complete, and they would like to extend this restrictive “maternal leave” to “parental leave,” covering not only women who give birth, but adoptive parents and partners. The Working Group continues to advocate for an inclusive policy that will be available to all GC students, whether birth or adoptive parents, regardless of whether they hold a GC fellowship.
The March DSC plenary meeting was held on March 15at 6:00 pm in room 5414. Provost Robinson and Louise Lennihan, Associate Provost and Dean for Humanities and Social Sciences, were scheduled to be the guest speakers at the beginning of the meeting. The guest for the next plenaryon April 19will be President Bill Kelly.
Elections for next year’s DSC positions will begin on April 1. All students nominated for any of the positions were informed via email in the first week of March.
A few reminders about resources available to students:
- The Grants Committee awards grants for student-organized events. The deadline for grants applications is March 25. Find more information at cunydsc.org/grants.
- The DSC provides free legal services through Community Legal Resource Network. GC students can make an appointment for a consultation at http://cunydsc.org/legalconsultations.
- Be in touch with the DSC through cunydsc.org, facebook.com/cunydsc, twitter.com/cunydsc, and the DSC listserv, DSC-L, which any GC student can join at gc.listserv.cuny.edu.
Comments by Michael Busch