After weeks of heated controversy, culminating in the intervention of Graduate School deans, select residents of the Lawrence graduate student apartment complex cast their ballots Monday night to choose members of the Lawrence Committee.
The committee, which organizes social events ...(back to the article)
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So the Lawrence Committee sends out an email about compromise and trade offs to best follow the bylaws, but they entirely fail to discuss the issues that before, during and after this "GSG Representative" position doesn't exist in any community document? And all the positions - even this fictitious one - were opened up, but they just failed to mention this until *after* the election? Insulting hardly captures their message.
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Well, Breaking News as gotten some answer, and it's an ugly one at that. In a long an frustratingly illogical email (including the tautological gem: "serving on the committee creates mainly an obligation to serve") we learn that the committee saw no reason to actually engage the graduate school or, God forbid, ask the community itself, and rather just accept without question "binding" instructions that also just happen to serve their interests to a tee (quote follows). Now righteousness can be added to that 'own worst enemy' phenomenon, a nice compliment to the 'popularity contest' condescension mentioned by an earlier commenter. We may not appreciate the compromise the graduate school mandated. But on the one hand the suggestion of an arbitrator is to be followed (that is the logic of the process) and on the other hand their instructions were binding, according to the deans office.
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NeedMoreInfo: Lawrence is one of the largest graduate student housing complexes at Princeton. I'd estimate that there are 500-600 residents and approximately 450 graduate students living at Lawrence. This is a significant percentage of the total graduate student population, which currently hovers around 2300. These "election" results should be thrown out and new elections, using democratic procedures, should be held immediately. Period.
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It's amazing that this had to come out in the Prince. Neither the Lawrence Committee nor the Graduate School thought it worthwhile to explain the full extent of their interventions -- or to date, even explain what finally happened with the election? They seem to be their own worst enemy in trying to avoid every appearance of foisting and insider job on Lawrence residents. No comfort to read the words of our new, non-graduate student GSG representative -- why bother having a committee or election if we'll just acquiesce to their dictates. Of course they know what's best, who should be elected... that's why we have this committee??? <<For Leiby, the Graduate School's intervention is only natural. "In the end of the day, they are the ones who support the committee," she said. "It's their right to have a say in what happens." >>
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Apropos of the editorial on graduate vs. undergraduate life, one can only imagine what would happen if a dean's office intervened, without explanation or accountability, in the election or operation of an undergraduate student organization. Apparently the graduate school thinks democracy's out the window once we're all grown up.
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Another mark of dubious democracy: The position for "Graduate Student Government Liaison," the position to which Leiby (herself not a graduate student, as has been pointed out) was recently "elected," is not sanctioned in either the Lawrence Committee's constitution nor its bylaws.
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It should be noted that Leiby is not herself a graduate student, making her less than qualified to represent the interests of the graduate students who make up the vast majority of Lawrence residents--on the Graduate Student Government no less. One wonders whether she was in fact looking to secure housing when she chose to run for a position to which she was so unsuited.
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There's some basic information missing from this article. We know that only 20 people ended up being eligible to voted and that there is a population beyond that who considers themselves disenfranchised, but how big is that population? Who is the Committee supposed to represent? How many people live in Lawrence--PU graduate students, their partners, and dependents?
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I second the comment by Unrepresented In Lawrence. Yaron Ayalon, Melanie Wood & others seem eager to dismiss the motives of rival candidates and go so far as to cast doubt on the capacity of Lawrence residents to participate in a democratic process. They are surprisingly condescending towards the population they claim to be so keen to represent. The Graduate School should be ashamed of its role in this whole sorry episode.
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It's ironic at best, duplicitous at worst, for Ayalon, Wood, et. al., to claim that others only wanted to run for the housing perk, then nod blithely when the Graduate School intervenes with the narrowest possible interpretation of franchise to move things forward, virtually ensuring the incumbents' and selective few insiders' housing assurances. And it's absolutely insulting to be told that the vast majority of people shouldn't be able to vote because we would only be able to orchestrate a popularity contest! For some self-regarding insider to make this claim flies in the face of any sort of democratic goals for the community -- who are they to declare some exclusive province to rule? The single mom or dad who can't make it to meetings; the child caring for ailing parents -- anyone not able to regularly attend are somehow less worthy of choosing their representatives? I can only hope that the graduate school accounts for its wrong-headed actions and the residents of Lawrence are able to have a true election, part and parcel with a revision of the Constitution and Bylaws. If the housing office can't figure out how to make the necessary arrangements after the lottery begins, then we've got even more problems to confront.
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This committee is a joke. If you read the constitution, it says that even though the Lawrence Apartments Committee is supposed to speak for all residents of the housing complex, (1) that constitution was ratified by the committee itself, not by the people it was supposed to represent (there's a chicken-and-egg problem for you) and (2) is only amendable by the committee. And its not as if the announcements as to the time, day, and place of the meetings are ever announced to the public. Until this constitution is overhauled (everyone can vote in elections, the constitution must be ratified and can only be amended by vote of the whole community), this will continue to be an unrepresentative body that does NOT speak for the Lawrence Apartment community. It's time to start from scratch.
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