Question

Dear Dean,

An amendment at CGSU regarding the creation on a Negotiating Committee allocates two representatives to each of these constituents – Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, Engineering, Humanities, Social Sciences (Endowed Colleges) and Social Sciences (Statutory Colleges). Do all of these have equal number of eligible voters? How many eligible voters are there in Cornell? And how are they divided across these?

Thanks

Equity-interested Graduate Student

Response

Dear Equity-interested Graduate Student,

Thank you for your Ask a Dean question. 

If elected, it will be up to CGSU/AFT/NYSUT to determine the procedures they will use to construct their Negotiating Committee and the processes they will use to appropriately represent their membership, which will include all individuals in the collective bargaining unit (Ithaca and Geneva campus-based Graduate School students holding TA, GRA, RA, or GA appointments).

Currently, there are about 2,220 eligible voters (the collective bargaining unit). It’s not clear which graduate fields CGSU/AFT/NYSUT would consider to be in each of their labels, so I’ll report the numbers of eligible voters in the four major disciplines that the Graduate School uses as an organizing framework:

• Physical Sciences and Engineering: ~980
• Social Sciences: ~500
• Life Sciences: ~500
• Humanities and Arts: ~250

I hope you find this information useful.

Warm regards,

Barb

Barbara A. Knuth
Senior Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School