NYU

what do you do for nyu, jw?

standoff in the cafeteria!!!!

a Mexican standoff? is John Woo a visiting prof?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/nyregion/19nyu.html?ref=nyregion

From what I've been picking up about this today, after walking past everything in the morning, they seem to have jumped a bit rapidly from the making-demands stage to the occupying-things stage -- I don't get the sense there's been any long engagement with the administration that is culminating in this ... ?

I mean, I want to give everyone involved the benefit of the doubt as far as seriousness goes, but this does not exactly look like any widespread flashpoint of the student body and the administration long having butted heads over specific issues, to put it really, really, insanely mildly.

not compared to the New School, where it seems all the faculty & students hate Bob Kerrey. (New School infiltrators reported in Times!)

yeah the administration seems more confused than anyone else by this

probably not helped by tacking on a couple weird pro-palestine measures to the end of their mostly sort of ho-hum college stuff list of demands

hilarious requests.

I taught there for 4 years.

the new school thing looked like it was the culmination of a long period of discontent, this looks a lot more like a bunch of students felt like protesting, which may just mean they need a better PR agent

well, Palestine is the new South Africa, only no Mandela

When will these flashmobbings end?

Full legal and disciplinary amnesty for all parties involved in the occupation.

Full compensation for all employees whose jobs were disrupted during the course of the occupation.

Public release of NYU’s annual operating budget, including a full list of university expenditures, salaries for all employees compensated on a semester or annual basis, funds allocated for staff wages, contracts to non-university organizations for university construction and services, financial aid data for each college, and money allocated to each college, department, and administrative unit of the university. Furthermore, this should include a full disclosure of the amount and sources of the university’s funding.

Disclosure of NYU’s endowment holdings, investment strategy, projected endowment growth, and persons, corporations and firms involved in the investment of the university’s endowment funds. Additionally, we demand an endowment oversight body of students, faculty and staff who exercise shareholder proxy voting power for the university’s investments.

That the NYU Administration agrees to resume negotiations with GSOC/UAW Local 2110 – the union for NYU graduate assistants, teaching assistants, and research assistants. That NYU publicly affirm its commitment to respect all its workers, including student employees, by recognizing their right to form unions and to bargain collectively. That NYU publicly affirm that it will recognize workers’ unions through majority card verification.

That NYU signs a contract guaranteeing fair labor practices for all NYU employees at home and abroad. This contract will extend to subcontracted workers, including bus drivers, food service employees and anyone involved in the construction, operation and maintenance at any of NYU’s non-U.S. sites.

The establishment of a student elected Socially Responsible Finance Committee. This Committee will have full power to vote on proxies, draft shareholder resolutions, screen all university investments, establish new programs that encourage social and environmental responsibility and override all financial decisions the committee deems socially irresponsible, including investment decisions. The committee will be composed of two subcommittees: one to assess the operating budget and one to assess the endowment holdings. Each committee will be composed of ten students democratically elected from the graduate and under-graduate student bodies. All committee decisions will be made a strict majority vote, and will be upheld by the university. All members of the Socially Responsible Finance Committee will sit on the board of trustees, and will have equal voting rights. All Socially Responsible Finance Committee and Trustee meetings shall be open to the public, and their minutes made accessible electronically through NYU’s website. Elections will be held the second Tuesday of every March beginning March 10th 2009, and meetings will be held biweekly beginning the week of March 30th 2009.

That the first two orders of business of the Socially Responsible Finance committee will be:
a) An in depth investigation of all investments in war and genocide profiteers, as well as companies profiting from the occupation of Palestinian territories.
b) A reassessment of the recently lifted of the ban on Coca Cola products.

That annual scholarships be provided for thirteen Palestinian students, starting with the 2009/2010 academic year. These scholarships will include funding for books, housing, meals and travel expenses.

That the university donate all excess supplies and materials in an effort to rebuild the University of Gaza.
Tuition stabilization for all students, beginning with the class of 2012. All students will pay their initial tuition rate throughout the course of their education at New York University. Tuition rates for each successive year will not exceed the rate of inflation, nor shall they exceed one percent. The university shall meet 100% of government-calculated student financial need.

That student groups have priority when reserving space in the buildings owned or leased by New York University, including, and especially, the Kimmel Center.

That the general public have access to Bobst Library.

why wd the public want access to Bobst?

are you seriously asking why the public would want to access a university library

Administration has responded with a demand for serial commas

NYU Admin offers shitty deal; denies food to guards
Feb 20th, 2009 by Take Back NYU!
Caitlin Boehne, a student representative from Take Back NYU!, was offered the following:

Linda Mills (Senior Vice Provost), and Lynn Brown (Senior Vice President) will negotiate with a group of 5 students at 5pm today, IF the rest of us vacate the space by 4pm today.

She said: “No thank you.” She then told them that will absolutely NOT leave before they negotiate with us, and that negotiation does NOT necessarily mean we are leaving - we’re not moving until we get our first two demands of amnesty and worker’s compensation. So the NYU Admin is still refusing to speak to us.

We have also heard that the guards stationed outside the space have not been given lunch breaks (this has been neither confirmed nor denied by the NYU Admin). We’re DEFINITELY not leaving until they get their food (we’ve offered them some of ours, but they’ve politely declined).

It is obvious that NYU cares neither about its students, nor about its employees.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

haha are you doing this bro pono

i'm a listen ashamed at my fuck these assholes impulse but the gaza shit is just...

http://takebacknyu.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/silly-faces.jpg

Max OTM about better PR, by the way -- yeah, a lot of these are sort of typical collegiate demands that I would more or less get behind, which makes me wonder what sort of push for those things has happened through more conventional channels up to this point. I mean, typically an occupation would have some sort of spur to it like an identifiable rejection of some set of demands, no?

And like -- just for instance -- with regard to unionization for assistants, I think I can say from visual observation that there doesn't appear to have been any kind of, umm, coordination with groups pushing for that (which groups have been pretty good at arranging protest events at other schools and looked notably absent this morning)

Take Back NYU! is a student-run coalition united by the dream for transparency, accountability, and democracy at NYU.

Here’s some history. Back in 2007, the group Students Creating Radical Change decided they wanted to take up a campaign for disclosure at NYU. They kicked things off with an event called “What is NYU Hiding?” in October. After building energy and support throughout the 2007-8 school year, SCRC collaborated with a number of student groups to write Take Back NYU!’s three demands: budget disclosure, endowment disclosure, and placing a student on NYU’s Board of Trustees.

Over the summer, SCRC reached out to dozens of student groups asking for endorsements of the Take Back NYU! demands. The groups that endorsed the three demands formed the core of the TBNYU! Coalition that now leads the campaign. On September 2nd, 2008, Take Back NYU! presented its three demands to the NYU administration and asked for a reply within one month. October 2nd came and went with no reply from NYU, leading SCRC and other groups to unite to form the TBNYU! Coalition and escalate pressure on the administration.

Already in the 2008-9 school year, Take Back NYU! hosted Have Your School and Eat It Too, an edible exploration to imagine our ideal university, and began flyering actions to increase student pressure on the NYU administration.

Also, members of TBNYU! are currently pursuing shareholder activism, reviewing NYU’s tax forms, and helped elect a SCRC and TBNYU! member to the University Senate Finance Committee.

Take Back NYU! is a dynamic, evolving campaign for accountability student democracy. Our ‘history’ changes almost weekly, so be sure to check back here for regular updates on our campaign and NYU news.

NB there really didn't look to be too many of them involved, either, something that might be underlined by the Gaza-related demands

Does anyone here have enough of a relationship with NYU to know how much this resonates with the student body? I work every morning in a cafe full of NYU kids and they were barely even talking about this

ask jon williams!

most of the list makes sense. i remember groups at AU in DC (where i went to undergrad) went through this kind of stuff after our former president was using university funds for personal stuff, and it was understood fairly well that some kind of transparency/accountability campaign was necessary (though they didn't occupy any buildings...as that wasn't really necessary...)

but yea the gaza shit is kind o_O at least for this kind of campaign (NYU doesn't have a SJP to take that end of it?)

i think i hung out with college activist types a bit too much in college so my first impulse is like eehh fuck these kids mostly cuz it brings back to many personal memories of megolomaniacal self-righteous activists that were often pretty repulsive on a personal level

sux how nyu is forcing these kids to give them $40k a year

My undergrad days are long long ago, but Bobst didn't strike me as having anything on the city libraries except more gay cruising perhaps.

Eh, I am totally fine with students anywhere making complaints about tuition rates and financial aid, especially if they don't feel like the budget's transparent enough to know whether they're being hosed -- universities do claim to have missions that are about broad access to education, and it's perfectly legitimate for students to make noise about holding them to those missions. (Especially since education isn't like a discrete purchase, it's a long-term relationship with an institution)

i spent a lot of my undergrad time demanding all sorts of similar transparency/greater student voice things from our administration/board of trustees (and our school had a really fucked up admin with an absurdly high rate of turnover--i had 4 difft presidents in the 4 years i was at school)--and we were only sort of vaguely successful when we went through "the proper channels" as it were.

so im sympathetic to the idea of occupying a building as a last resort to get your voice heard. but as nbsco points out they need to make it clearer that theyve spent X amount of time trying to effect change thru student government, town hall meetings, whatever (if thats true), becauase right now it just seems like a bunch of college kids decided they wanted to protest something

cambridge university student union doing pretty much all of this, to the letter

becauase right now it just seems like a bunch of college kids decided they wanted to protest something

yah just emailed a bro whos in a grad program at nyu and he was like "who's doing what now" - the way none of this seems to have been communicated to any other student organizations makes it feel like an attention-grab

a lot of the demands esp re: transparency, student rep are valid thats why i cringe at my own dismissiveness

sux how nyu is forcing these kidsthese kids' parents to give them $40k a year

There's no reason to pay this much for higher ed. You're paying for a brand, kiddies.

^^

http://gawker.com/5873148/the-crazy-department+wide-emails-that-everyone-at-nyu-is-talking-about

This is very long and I have to run out the door in a couple mins - can you pls summarize it?

Or I guess i could just read it later.

that is some wacky stuff

uh wow

I mean, I am not at all discounting the "I do not feel safe going there" argument, that actually seems to be a relatively rational reaction all things considered, but nothing about the way that is written is rational or sensible; in fact, it's pretty upsetting and I hope she gets help.

college students, especially ones at schools like nyu, and especially ones at nyu, are such awful human beings

lol not sure this is really the case where it makes sense to paint with the broad brush

jordan, how many NYU students have you spent any amt of time with? i mean, this girl is pretty disturbed and maybe a bit egocentric, but idk if it's fair to her or her fellow students to classify them as "awful human beings."

this girl really reminds me of a friend of mine that disappeared halfway through her sophomore year due to the onset of schizophrenia

hyperbole, by j0rdan s. xp

well hopefully the student body of NYU will be able to withstand the unfair accusation i just made on ilx

yeah onset of schizophrenia was my first thought tbh

this is my favorite part btw:

Lastly, I have over 1,000 friends on facebook, and if Professor Zaloom does not resign, or is not fired by 9 am tomorrow morning, I will publish every single email exchange we have had, on my facebook account.

I don't know if this is current but:

Sara Ackerman is currently a sophomore at New York University, pursuing a degree in English and American Literature, with a minor in Creative Writing.

:-(

lol that's what I graduated with

Also Jordan fuck you. Just kidding - you're actually probably a lot closer to being on the money then off ime.

finally, I am gonna read this now

school w/ the most student debt among non-profit institutions in the country has assignment to go visit OWS

gonna guess sara ackerman doesn't have much tho

Need more information, to be honest. What was Professor Galoob's exact assignment, for example? What class did Professor Zaboom teach?

would zaloom

It's just that, the first time I went down to an Occupy site, I met someone within 5 minutes who I would have immediately peaced out from, given their mental health indicators, had I not been in the company of an OWSer I trusted. And I'm a big guy who can take care of himself. But in terms of assuming personal risk, thanks, but no. I wouldn't blame someone for trying to sort out an alternative assignment. Need more information.

beachville is def best new sock

eh

i'm goin to zaloom zaloom's!!!

nebville

i feel bad for this girl though, sorry. it makes me hate the internet that a meltdown gets amplified into a lifelong embarrassment. she shouldn't have melted down over email but maybe she couldn't help it.

eh I sympathize with that idea but at the same time this was too public a meltdown to become not-a-public-meltdown, remember all her friends in the media she was about to contact

i don't disagree, just sucks

plus lol republicans. anyway maybe she can leverage it into an internship at morgan stanley or something.

All I was trying to say is that people shouldn't automatically assume that because she's freaking out that she's mentally ill. Like, if she legitimately wanted to do an alternative assignment and the teacher put up a lot of resistance to that? Usually professors are amenable to that sort of thing.

The story needs more context, is all I'm saying, and I'm sure it'll turn up.

Sara, this seems to be a continuation of the same matter about which I met with you and your mother a few weeks ago after the disruption in Professor Zaloom's class.

xp when you're in college and the professor gives you an assignment, you better have a good reason to request not doing it.

Rachelle Greta
Yesterday
This might sound like a stretch but the behavior of the NYU administration reminds me of what happened at Penn State. Someone should have done something.

if she was really worried about personally safety she presumably could've found one of the many NYU undergrad + grad students involved with OWS and asked them for help

i imagine she had worked herself into a state where she wasn't really able to recognise what options were actually available to her - just as she wasn't able to stop and think "is there a formal way i can complain" (ie the grievance procedure that exists, which there must surely be details of on the college website and in the student handbook), or "what kind of formatting/wording will make my email more effective" (rather than crazy-lookin), she wasn't able to think beyond "i am FORCED to do this and it is a danger to me" to develop a strategy by which she'd feel less endangered, e.g. requesting that a TA come with her, or someone she'd otherwise feel protected by.

one of my friends who's got some problems with compulsive behaviour has a really bad habit of getting herself onto a track and being unable to recognise that 1. it's the wrong track 2. there are other options 3. what she thinks is 'logical' is actually fantastical, while remaining very bright and capable.

well this is something

college students, especially ones at schools like nyu, and especially ones at nyu, are such awful human beings

― J0rdan S., Friday, January 6, 2012 5:50 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://www.weddingspeechesforall.com/affiliate/images/up_arrow.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEQJZ8Ccpqc

rang.ashley @yumpopink
Entitled narcissist is good but I was thinking dumb ass bitch so . . . let's hope NYU kicks her out. What an idiot.

hear, hear

then again, i adhere to the "be brief or be quiet" school of dialogue. endless screeds are rarely, if ever, a positive sign.

so i have discovered the incredible news today that this young lady will be attending one of my brother's weddings this year O_o

that should be brothers'*

is she also available for bar mitzvahs

i guess if she's friends w/ the bar mitzvah boy!

lol schlump

lol jordan and whiney, if only everyone could lead lives as worthy as "internet music critic"

wow @ all that.

this is kind of a timely update because i realized that i should probably try to get a job at nyu so i can go back to school for free since i just figured out what i want to study again (at an undergraduate level). i wish i could be in school forever.

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/18k52sqrf3d1qjpg.jpg

Really would like a "where are they now" on this crew.

None of the google image search results for silly-faces.jpg are the Take Back NYU silly-faces.jpg