Kelly Weill · NYU Local

Council Speaker Christine Quinn Rallies In Support of NYU Grad Student Union

May 14th, 2013 by Kelly Weill

Members of NYU’s Graduate Student Organizing Committee flexed their political muscle last Thursday when their rally for unionization was headlined by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and supported by over 250 other state elected officials.

The GSOC—NYU’s currently unrecognized labor union for Teaching and Research Assistants—has campaigned for collective bargaining rights since 2004, when the National Labor Relations Board ruled that graduate students employed by universities qualified as students, and were therefore ineligible for union rights. In 2002, two years before the NLRB’s decision, the GSOC voted to become a part of the United Auto Workers Local 2110 union, and achieved a contract with NYU. The contract recognized NYU’s TAs and RAs as employees, raised their stipends by 40 percent, offered health benefits, and granted overtime pay if their hours exceeded 20 per week.

But after the NLRB ruling, NYU allowed the contract to expire, leaving RAs and TAs without collective bargaining rights in 2005. Now the GSOC hopes to reinstate its contract with support from city and state officials. Read more…

@nyuniversity joan torch john sexton The Internet Twitter

Joan Torch Just Joined Twitter, And These NYU Icons Should Too

May 8th, 2013 by Kelly Weill

“Have you heard? There’s this site called the Twitter, and all the kids are using it!”

That seems to have been NYU’s outlook toward the social media site this spring, as NYU took its first tentative steps into the Twittersphere on April 1 under the handle @nyuniversity.

But the official @nyuniversity handle isn’t the only iconic NYU voice to join Twitter recently. Just this weekend, ¢ampu$ ¢a$h Queen Joan Torch announced her own Twitter debut. “I’m on The Twitter! Can’t wait to share my luv of NYU ¢ampu$ ¢a$h with the world! #campuscash,” @JoanTorch tweeted on May 4.

Both NYU-centric accounts know how to reach their audiences: @nyuniversity tweets motivational posters, while @JoanTorch tweets Cinco de Mayo reminders to “go swipe that ¢ampu$ ¢a$h card at Chipotle!”

In light of NYU’s newfound Twitter presence, here are the NYU icons we’d like to start tweeting next. Read more…

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[PHOTOS] Students From “Diamonds” Cover Win Contest, Chill With Rihanna

May 6th, 2013 by Kelly Weill

Let’s face it: our showertime renditions of “Diamonds” probably won’t be getting Rihanna’s attention any time soon. Fortunately, the super-talented singers and producers from the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music have our backs. After their “Diamonds” cover went viral, a group ReMu kids were selected as the winners of a Rihanna cover contest, by none other than Rihanna herself.

Because Rihanna’s label, Def Jam, had yet to officially announce the winners, the Clive Davis students were sworn to secrecy over their victory.

“Hannah Babbit (the director of our group) messaged us and said that she had some top secret news, and then proceeded to tell us that we won,” freshman Sonali Argade said. “We weren’t allowed to tell anyone at first because Rihanna’s team had to officially announce it before we could.”

But that didn’t stop the artists from freaking out.

Life At NYU, As Told By NYU Fanfiction

April 26th, 2013 by Kelly Weill

Remember when you were waiting for your acceptance letter? Whether NYU was your dream school or just your safety, you’d catch yourself longing for the city, dreaming of the day when you’d leave your home for the magic of New York (this was before you learned about Bobst.)

You weren’t the only one dreaming. In fact, some would-be students have dedicated hundreds of pages to their NYU-centric fantasies. So focused are these writers’ efforts that NYU Fanfiction has swelled into its own thriving—if slightly inaccurate—genre. So, without further ado, NYU Local presents the best of NYU fanfiction:

In a sweeping epic that pairs an NYU student (a “Music&Arts” major) with One Direction member Harry Styles, author CandyStyles relates the experience of arriving at one’s new dorm by cab. Read more…

Freshmen Leadership NYU Administration Project OutReach Transfer Students welcome week

Project OutReach’s Future Still Up In The Air, No Decision Yet From NYU

April 19th, 2013 by Kelly Weill

The future of Project OutReach is looking uncertain. OutReach, a service program aimed at first-year and transfer students, brings new students to the city for four days of volunteer work before Welcome Week begins. The program is aided largely by its extensive network of alumni leaders, who are undergraduate students who completed the program and return to lead its new members.

But NYU’s recently proposed reorganization of Project OutReach seeks to trim down the number of alumni leaders while inviting more new member, a change some OutReach alumni are protesting as damaging to the program.

“They are looking to justify the program’s budget by growing the number of participants involved in the program while decreasing the number of returning leaders. [...] With these proposed changes, the program could potentially go dormant this coming year– for the first time in its 20 year history,” alumni Mike Han wrote on the Facebook page NYU Project OutReach Alumni. Read more…

Chuck Grassley Jack Lew lawsuits everywhere lobbyists

NYU Hires Top DC Lawyer Amid Questions Over Shady Loans

April 17th, 2013 by Kelly Weill

NYU is preparing for battle against Chuck Grassley. The Iowa Senator—perhaps better-known for his accidentally brilliant Twitter—is pushing NYU to release information surrounding benefits provided to top NYU officials. In anticipation of further inquiries, the university has hired Stephen Ryan, a top DC lawyer who specializes in defending clients against congressional investigations.

Hiring Ryan is no small move by NYU. According to the New York Post, Ryan’s other current clients include Senator Robert Menendez, whose shady financial transactions with a supporter earned him a pending ethics investigation. Menendez came under fire after he belatedly paid the supporter almost $60,000 for private flights to the Dominican Republic.

But $60,000 is little compared to the $1.4 million home loan NYU awarded its former VP Jack Lew, or the $72 million in loans NYU owes to 168 people. Both sets of loans triggered Grassley’s alarm, according to a letter he addressed to John Sexton, in which he requested “all loan documents for loans made to individuals from 2000 to the present,” a “list of all of loans that have a 0% interest rate,” and “details of all severance payments of $100,000 or more made from 2000 to the present.” Read more…

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How To Survive At NYU Using The NYU-Specific Facebook Pages

April 2nd, 2013 by Kelly Weill

We’re living in the renaissance of NYU-specific Facebook pages: A golden age for anonymous confessions, cute compliments, and questionable dating profiles. In the past few months, pages like NYU Secrets and NYU Hookups have drawn massive attention across campus, and have inspired countless other NYU-related pages. Here’s our definitive guide on how to survive using NYU’s Facebook network. (It will cease being a definitive guide next week, when approximately 400 new pages will be born.)

If you’re looking to get laid:

Hoping to hit it off with a friendly stranger? Try browsing NYU Hook Ups’ for the anonymous partner of your dreams. Over 360 users have uploaded their bios—without names or faces—to the page. Make contact with one of these anons and see where it goes; may the odds be ever in your favor. Read more…

FUN. NYU-Poly Video games

NYU To Open New Video Games Studies Facility Next Fall

March 29th, 2013 by Kelly Weill

Some higher-ups in NYU’s administration must be gamers! NYU recently announced plans to open a new center for video game studies in Brooklyn next fall.

The new facility—called the Media and Games Network, or MAGNET—will be home to a number of gaming-related programs, from computer programming to games design. Located on the NYU Poly campus, the 40,000 square-foot facility aims to unify aspiring games designers under one roof.

“To my great happiness, I will be spending a lot less money on my subway cards,” Katherine Isbister, an associate professor, told the Associated Press. Ibister is a game and human-computer interaction researcher and designer with a joint appointment, who splits her time between the NYU’s Game Center in Greenwich Village and NYU Poly in Brooklyn.

According to Isbister, the combination of artists, computer scientists, and academics who study video games will open doors to new kinds of collaboration. Read more…

2031 Plan Everyone is suing everyone Matthew Broderick

Your NYU 2031 Forecast: Lawsuits Forever

March 28th, 2013 by Kelly Weill

Faculty may have passed the vote of no confidence, but the Sexton-driven NYU 2031 Plan barrels forward over objections. Last week, a lawsuit claiming the 2031 Plan violates the rights of rent-stabilized tenants was dismissed by the New York State Supreme Court.

The suit—a potential roadblock for 2031—contested that NYU’s planned expansion would illegally eliminate park grounds from rent-stabilized residents in the Washington Square Village apartment complex. But according to Justice Ellen M. Coin who dismissed the case, it’s still too early for residents to assume their gardens will be lost. “NYU’s construction project is currently in its infancy,” Coin said. Read more…