one year later: where's the data?

sept. 2 marked one year since the state of massachusetts ordered umass amherst officials to comply with massachusetts public records law and provide detailed demographic information about umass students to SGA president eduardo bustamante, who had filed the request. the university has yet to give any indication that it will comply with the order, which came from supervisor of records alan n. cote, who works for secretary of the commonwealth william galvin.

in an interview with the collegian last fall following the order, mike gargano continued to maintain that the information requested could not be provided because of FERPA, the federal law designed to protect privacy. this reasoning was effectively dismissed by the state when it ruled that the data requested by bustamante did not fall under FERPA protection. the purpose of FERPA is to protect the privacy of individual records, not of aggregated data, which is what was requested.

the true reason for the university's illegal withholding of the data was explained to me and bustamante when we met with gargano last summer, before the two of us, like the SGA, realized how utterly pointless it was to meet with him. he explained that he won't give us the information because we would "misuse" it. plainly, the university's concern is not privacy but rather what the data would reveal, were it to be made public.

and what would the data reveal? the request, which was printed fully in the first issue of the graduate voice last year, asks for breakdowns of data on racial, gender and income diversity by department, program, school, town of residence, and other such detailed information designed to go beyond the superficial data that the university reports in order to make itself appear to be a more diverse and accessible place than it actually is. the GSS created the staff position of "educational access research coordinator" largely in order to keep the university honest about its track record on diversity and affordability. the university's withholding of information makes it hard for this staffer to do his job.

the university's contempt for any attempt to hold it accountable is not just the province of extreme misanthropes like gargano: it flows from the top down. chancellor lombardi seems to have evaded criticism here for his contempt for the public, but when he was at the university of florida, he was criticized for, among other things, deriding public record laws, calling them "a crutch for lazy newspeople".

right now the case is sitting in attorney-general reilly's office. he is the official responsible for enforcing the law, and has the power to take whatever measures he deems necessary to ensure compliance. unfortunately he has not acted. keep in mind when he declares his candidacy for governor that he does not respect the state's laws enough to enforce them as an attorney-general.

as for the university's contempt for state law, keep it in mind next time the university wants something from you. if the institution won't take the public seriously enough to comply with state orders, there is no reason why anybody else should take it seriously enough to donate money to it or show any respect for it.

grad lounge update

the grad lounge opening has been delayed from sept. 12 (this coming monday) to the 19th (the following monday).

also: hours will be 9 am to 9 pm. alcohol will be served between 11 am and 9 pm. this is tremendously upsetting to ashkenazim like me, who are accustomed to drinking whiskey at 8 am. rest assured, i do not intend to serve out my term sober.

interdepartmental grad student colloquium series

some grad students have initiated a monthly (or so) colloquium series where graduate students give talks for a nonspecialist grad student audience. this is a great idea that helps grad students both professionally and socially, and we jumped at the chance to support it. the details of the first meeting are as follows:

DATE: Thursday, September 29, 2005

TIME: 5:00 pm

PLACE: Bartlett 206

SPEAKER: Jessica Butler (Microbiology)

TALK TITLE: Bacteria That Eat Gasoline, Breathe Iron, and Secrete Nanowires

we're #7!

umass is rated as the #7 most expensive college campus in the US, in terms of tuition and fees.

the holiday formerly known as columbus day

i discovered the following commitment from the umass administration:

The campus is willing to arrange for Teach-Ins on the day which Massachusetts calls Columbus Day, and to re-name that day appropriately as far as campus usage is concerned. It will remain a State holiday for those State employees who wish to use it that way.

This is from an agreement between students and the administration dating from november 7, 1992 and commonly known as the ALANA accords. it was mediated by an official from the US justice department, and is a legally binding contract.

what shall it be renamed? my personal preference is hitler day, after the brave and visionary, though ultimately flawed, discoverer of europe. GEO prefers "anti-colonialism day", as reflected in its calendar. i'm sure the administration will choose wisely. i can't wait for the teach-ins at the center for student development.

university keeps fucking with students

the university's exploitation of students continues to intensify, with changes coming so quickly and suddenly that it's hard to keep up. new things i heard yesterday include:

registered student organizations (RSOs) will start being charged for using audiovisual equipment for events. it's expected that they will start being charged for use of space as well, even as room capacities shrink. this is in buildings - the campus center and student union building - that were built with student money, not taxpayer money. meanwhile, the office of ALANA affairs, confined to a cramped office that can't support the kind of staff it requires, has been told by the administration that it no longer has access to the suffolk room, which it has been using as a meeting space.

on the personnel front, the student activities office is being gutted. the number of professional staff advising RSOs will shrink from an already overworked 5 to 3. what's more, RSO's have been randomly reassigned to advisors, with two effects. first, longtime relationships between RSOs and their advisors have been severed; second, advisors can no longer specialize, as they had in the past, in different sorts of RSOs - cultural, political, religious, recreational, etc.

part of the reduction of staff involves a request for one staff member to voluntarily transfer from student activities to enrollment services, with the indication that if nobody transfers voluntarily, there will be a forced transfer. this would be illegal treatment of professional staff, but of course gargano and his crooked bosses don't give a fuck about the law. nor do they care about promises - in june, student activities staff were told that nobody will be transferred out of that office.

grad lounge reopening: update

we now have a date for the reopening of the grad lounge: next monday, september 12.

hours of operation will be 9 am to 9 pm. the grad lounge will serve rao's coffee, some pastries a little nicer than the blue wall's fare, and sandwiches. there will also be alcohol served during some business hours.

the grad lounge needs your support to succeed - check it out and tell all your friends!