[1099] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: So That's Your Price?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Constantine K. Christakos)
Wed Mar 13 11:51:33 2002
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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2002 11:49:58 -0500
From: "Constantine K. Christakos" <dean@MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <uv64rjkdg0p.fsf@suspiria.ai.mit.edu>
On Wed, 13 Mar 2002, Jeremy H. Brown wrote:
> This is why the GSC, which has almost none of the political
> overhead of the UA, is actually occasionally an effective
> organization.
Let me second that opinion. I've always said that the reason the GSC works
is because it functions like a union. The GSC negotiates as a group on
behalf of the interests of the graduate students. A great example of this,
which caused a minor uproar, was when the GSC managed to get the proposed
day care center moved out of the plans for the new graduate student dorm.
Why? Because it was not in the graduate students' interests to have a day
care center in their dorm! There wasn't any talk about "fostering campus
unity" or "creating a dialog between the GSC, administration, and those in
need of day care." They looked at it and said, "we want what is good for
the group we represent."
The UA, on the other hand, can be summed up Paul Oppold's statement that
"It's not that the UA is for or against," housing freshmen on campus. It
was, of course, all about "creating dialog," "fostering free speech," and
"to represent student opinion to the administration." (incidently, the
last is typically the job description of an ombudsman) And, in case anyone
thinks things have changed in the past three years, we see today that one
of the UAP candidates is running on a platform where "not bringing the
community together" is looked upon as the greatest failure of the UA over
the last year and a wish to start a new focus on "student faculty
relationships in general."
So, as you can imagine, I would allow that a certain amount of cynicism
among the undergraduates is not unwarranted.
-Dean
-----------
Constantine K. (Dean) Christakos H: (617) 547-3519
Massachusetts Institute of Technology W: (617) 253-3945
Department of Media Arts and Sciences E15-495
http://web.mit.edu/dean/www/dean.html
Why I am apparently the only source of power and influence in the Eastern
Time Zone who did not have Enron execs throwing money at me mystifies me
and makes me feel really bad.
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