Election of delegate to GSG invalidated

Leiby, a Center for Jewish Life administrator, was elected March 24. The GSG constitution, however, states that delegates from residential housing communities must be graduate students, precluding Leiby from being a representative. The committee’s constitution does not have this specification.

Leiby declined to comment for this article.

The development comes on the heels of a controversial election for the Lawrence Committee during which charges of manipulation, lack of transparency and undemocratic procedures were voiced by candidates and other Lawrence residents.

The situation, however, is further confounded because the position Leiby was elected to does not exist in the Lawrence Committee’s constitution, which actually states that the president and vice president are supposed to represent residents’ interest to the GSG.

The GSG does not have the jurisdiction to decide how Leiby’s situation will be resolved, GSG chair Christina Hultholm GS explained. The next GSG assembly meeting on April 9 will include a forum for students to discuss issues related to the Lawrence Committee elections.

The Lawrence Committee is waiting until its town hall meeting on April 16 to discuss any amendments to its constitution, committee president Kim Tu GS said in an e-mail.

Though Leiby cannot be officially recognized as a delegate, Hultholm said, she can come voice her concerns on behalf of Lawrence residents in an unofficial capacity.

“It would be more or less [like] anyone who came to the meeting who is not a member of GSG,” Hultholm explained.

Tu added that Leiby “can still fulfill the required duties of a representative as stated in [Lawrence’s] constitution as a guest,” by attending meetings, distributing information and minutes, and designating a proxy when unable to attend committee and assembly meetings.

Failing to meet the constitution

Soon after campaigning for membership began, the Lawrence Committee realized that it had not been following proper election procedures because it had allowed individuals to run for office without having attended the constitutionally required number of committee meetings.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Seats on the committee are highly coveted, given the demand for graduate housing and the priority in housing selection given to committee members.

The electoral procedures in the constitution would have invalidated the candidacies of all individuals running for the committee except for Leiby and now-social chair Melanie Wood GS.

To resolve the discrepancy, the Lawrence Committee appealed to the Graduate School, which decided to allow individuals who had already announced their candidacy to run. It limited the right to vote, however, to people who had attended one meeting prior to the election.

After the election, many Lawrence residents voiced their concerns about the legitimacy of the results in e-mails to the committee, GSG and Graduate School administrators.

Lawrence resident Chris Moses GS criticized the lack of transparency, calling the elections a “screw-up” and “a strategic attempt to enforce a limited pool of candidates and votes,” saying that he wants to see the election completely redone.

“[Leiby’s ineligibility] is just sort of the icing on the cake, really,” Moses added.

Lawrence resident and politics department GSG representative Kevin Collins GS, though, emphasized the need for broader changes.

“This debate needs to be on intuitions, not personalities,” Collins said. “The resolution to this problem needs to be addressed towards those institutional problems, not the people who won or lost the election.”

Chronic shortages

One such institutional problem is the lack of housing, which is not guaranteed to all graduate students because the University has not built enough space to accommodate them, Lawrence resident Ben Schmidt GS said, adding that this scarcity means organizations like the Lawrence Committee are popular for their housing perks.

University Housing Director Andrew Kane said in an e-mail that 200 graduate students were denied housing this year, despite the addition of 56 graduate housing units in the residential colleges.

He added, though, that most of those 200 people have been offered housing off a waitlist by the beginning of the school year.

Collins said that it is “incumbent” on the GSG, the Graduate School and the trustees to ensure housing for its students.

Under the 10-year campus plan, however, the University will renovate several graduate residences, but will only maintain enough housing for 70 percent of the graduate students, the same percentage currently living in campus housing, Kane said.

“In maintaining housing capacity for approximately 70 percent of enrolled graduate students, Princeton’s graduate student housing program remains well ahead of the peer institutions that candidates for admission might be considering,” Kane noted.