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We guess it's never too early for financial malfeasance to occur, which means you should expect investigations into student council spending across the country! NYU's College of Arts and Science Student Council is embroiled in a scandal: The Sun explains that student council president Meredith Dolgin may have "improperly disbanded an election committee and appointed two friends just as the elections were about to begin."
And not only that, the Washington Square News found out that Dolgin paid her grandmother $2,200 in speaking and travel fees, and used other student council money for a trip to a pumpkin patch! (Not to mention submitting receipts for groceries, which seems suspicious, for reimbursement.) The WSN has good background on Dolgin's grandmother and the other curious expenses as well as why the pumpkin-patch trip is questionable. Hmm, if student council funds could be used to give money to grandparents, we bet more people would run.
This has prompted an editorial from the WSN with suggestions for other uses of NYU finances, given the lack of oversight over student council funds; here are two:
1. Seeing as Meredith Dolgin, Dustin Robinson and Zoe Laird had such a blast at the pumpkin patch, NYU should provide universal access to a pumpkin patch, allowing all students to frolic about orange vegetation. Building one in Washington Square would quickly accomplish this goal...Dolgin, who is under investigation by the university, did not show up for an emergency student council meeting last night.4. Why exactly are NYU students who are not enrolled in summer courses charged $40 to access the sports facilities over those summer months? It must be that the $40,000 per student per year doesn't cover costs. Honestly, NYU, you're gonna have to work that one out because we'd kind of like to, um, work out...
Do you have memories of strange goings-on at your student council? We only remember when the entire budget for a dorm was spent on portable lighting fixtures and extension cords.
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sounds like someone who has a future in goverment!
My favorite Student Gov. experience was when we launched a safe-ride van program and the Student Body President was pulled over for drunk-driving the same night.
oh my god! Full scale corruption, and she's just in college!!!
This frightens me for our future. It looks like she is trying out for the bush administration
What wonderful people schools are putting out these days. Not that American colleges were ever places dominated by people who intend to cultivate morality.
that's disgusting, they better vote her out..
that's disgusting, they better vote her out..
nepotism and groceries are just for now, but Wikipedia is FOREVER!!!! HA!
As someone who used to deal with the NYU CAS student council, its never been too good at keeping things clean.
Two years ago the then treasurer (not Meredith) gave out to much money to CAS Clubs thus causing the university dealing a huge (punitive) budget cut to CAS resulting in a huge loss of funding the following year (the year Meredith was treasurer).
Moreover, the CAS student government elections are a joke. Usually only one person runs for any position, because, to be honest, no one has enough school/CAS spirit to care. Everyone is just into their own special club (like a departmental or debate type club). Usually whoever starts as a freshman and actually sticks around for 2 or 3 years can easily get on the Eboard.
Also, the CAS student government doesn't have the same jurisdictional as the all-university one or the program board (which does fun things like book concerts and organizes strawberry fest...). So, the CAS council is not really that exciting and can be considered second rate.
Either way, in my personal dealings with Meredith (when she was treasurer) I never particularly liked her 'ideas' for fundraising (does a bake sale for 20 different clubs really sound profitable when you split it 20 ways? No.. I don't think so). But she never struck me as full on corrupt.
Though I must add, that NYU's bureaucracy almost encourages corruption. basically you get a budget and if you use it all, the following year you might get an increase. If you have any left over, you probably will get a budget cut. So there is this certain driving force to spending all of your money and sometimes you get creative (though usually it involves end-of-the-year parties for your club members which can be actually a somewhat 'legitimate' expense.. or at least one that falls within guidelines.)
NYU Alum,
I don't think it would be very difficult to use up the budget for the year on worthwhile ventures. Of course this would require some original thought, which is evidently lacking these days. If you want to be in student government though, you should be chock full of ideas like this.
Here is a question for you: you mention that this girl did not 'strike you' as corrupt. However, given the few pieces of evidence that are mentioned above, would you like to now label her as such? I'm just trying to figure how where the bar is for you.
I am of the 'innocent until proven guilty' persuasion so it really all depends on what her intentions are. There are a lot of rules as to how one can spend monetary funds, etc.. and while a good student governor should know the ins and outs, sometimes its just a bit much for a college kid to deal with. That being said, its possibly she did not know she was doing anything wrong or maybe she had good reason to get rid of the election committee. We really haven't heard her side. I would also like to know more about the supervisor and why she didn't catch these indiscretions, since its clear that they were not exactly kept private.
Either way, I was not saying she was or was not corrupt, I was just adding some background information on the CAS Student Council.
As I explained already, the people with the really creative ideas at NYU do not spend their time in CAS (just the undergrad college of arts & sciences) student council, they instead shoot for the big leagues (the all university equivalent). That means we get stuck with unimaginative people in CAS. Besides, no one ever WENT to CAS events (even if there was a whole lot of free food!), so even if they were imaginative, they never found much success.
Of course you have to look at the facts, and investigate the details, but it's going to be pretty some rare circumstances in which the 2,200 to her grandmother is going to be justified.
NYU Alum -- my law school had the same system of basing club budget increases/decreases on whether any money was left over at the end of the year. It weirdly disincentivized saving money and caused every student group that had tried saving, received an unexpected outside grant, lost their scheduled speaker to SARS travel restrictions, or simply failed to plan ahead, to spend the money on a kegger in April. They should work out a better way.
This stuff is just the tip of the iceberg. There's much, much more to this story, and when it all comes out, hoo-boy!
If you look at today's WSN, Dolgin apparently does not consider herself President anymore--this in an attempt to install the "new" President (though the elections held last week were invalidated)...which thankfully backfired. The council's VP is serving as acting President for now and the official financial investigation continues. No one saw this coming, but I'm glad this has made its way into news outside of NYU--that way the university administration (and PR) can't just ignore it.
As for the comment above, if you're really an NYU admin, I can't wait to hear the rest--I suspect the financial misappropriation (::cough:: abuse, corruption, etc ::cough::) goes deeper than just grocery receipts and overpaid grandmothers. Or maybe not, but if it did, it wouldn't be the craziest twist in this unfolding story.
Dolgin you are corrupt scum!!
I hate corrupt scum!