This year brought about many changes to the structure of Student Government not only in terms of how it’s run but also in terms of how NYU Shanghai will seek to further integrate itself with campuses across the Global Network, particularly those in New York and Abu Dhabi. It was for the purposes of servicing this latter end that the Global Action Committee (GAC) was established in the spring term of last year, headed by the Global Vice President. However, the role and the nature of the GAC has been the subject of much confusion amongst the student body of NYU Shanghai. OCA recently sat down with our own Global Vice President, Kenny Song, as well as the Global Vice President of New York proper, Jonathan Bach, to shed light on the roles and responsibilities of the GAC, its place in the NYUSH community, and the types of projects it is undertaking. Can you give us a brief about the Global Affairs Committee? (GAC) Jonathan Bach: So the Global Student Council was established last year as a way for the students of the three portal campuses to connect and work together to further NYU’s global mission. Three Global Vice Chairs* run it and these students accomplish their work through their respective committees. However, the way these committees interact with their respective student governments is different, especially in NY. Kenny Song: [At NYUSH], the GAC consists of the Global Vice President, and a variable number of appointed members as decided by the Executive Board. We currently have three appointed GAC members: Kiril Bolotnikov (sophomore), Alexandru Grigoras (freshman), and Murphy Li (freshman). We have a fairly flat structure so there are no titular differences in roles for the appointed members – responsibilities are primarily project-based. We usually meet once per week as the GAC, and the three Global VPs schedule a Google Hangout every two weeks. *New York goes by the Chair system instead of the President systemWhat has your position as the NYU Shanghai Global Vice President entailed till now? What have you accomplished for the NYUSH community since ascending power?Kenny Song: There are a lot of parallels between establishing the Student Government last year and this year’s Global Student Council (essentially the three campuses’ GACs plus some other folks). We spent part of the first semester setting up the systems and structures for effective operation, as well as establishing a lot of foundations for our future work. Many of our projects so far have been internal and not necessarily visible to the wider community. A brief overview: We helped establish the Shanghai and Abu Dhabi Senator positions for representation in New York. We’re in the process of unifying the site ambassadors program across campuses, as well as creating Shanghai’s ambassadors program for next fall. We organized the Global Governance Summit taking place this January. We researched into possible online global site review and feedback platforms. We ran the Global Stories Contests for NYU, and are spreading New York’s Global Day of Service to the portal campuses during the spring semester. We’re also working on compiling a centralized list of all clubs and student organizations across NYU categorized by their respective themes. What has your position as the NYU New York Global Vice President entailed till now? What have you accomplished for the NYU New York community since ascending power?Jonathan Bach: So New York is a completely different beast compared to the other portal campuses because of the number of students and size. It’s just had more time to grow. As the New York Global Vice Chair, I have been tasked with creating the global agenda for the Student Senators Council (SSC) and then following through with completing the agenda. So background information: The Global Affairs Committee used to be a part of the University Committee on Student Life (UCSL), SSC’s largest committee. The first order of business for me was organizational mission and strategy. I had found that the Student Senators Council was too New York centric. Almost all the committees except the Global Affairs Committee had to deal with New York related issues. But, we have over a thousand students studying away every semester, constituents at two other degree-granting portal campuses, and eleven other global sites. So as global students, we wanted to give a voice to NYU’s global body just as much as the New York one. So I proposed a structural change. If the Global Affairs Committee was removed from its umbrella committee, the UCSL, and became its own umbrella, it would be given the reputational boost and organizational freedom to grow. We rebranded the Global Affairs Committee to be the Global Committee on Student Life (GCSL) to mirror the UCSL. With this structural change, we created multiple subcommittees (ISAC was already established) under the GCSL to organize our efforts: the International Student Affairs Committee, Site Ambassadors Committee, Global Operations Committee, and Global Policy Committee. The International Student Affairs Committee is tasked with improving international student experiences in New York City. Site Ambassadors’ Committee consists of our representatives at each global site and portal campus that act as first responders. The Global Operations Committee works on facilitating and hosting marquee events on six continents. And finally, the Global Policy committee works on long term projects that improve the student global experience such as academic consistency and global club structure. I then selected 3 out of the 4 chairs (ISAC already had a chair selected) to run the committees and eventually created another Chief of Staff position to distribute the workload of an SSC Global Vice Chair. What projects have been done/are being worked on right now? What plans do you have for the future? What kind of ideas are currently on the table or being discussed to improve collaboration/contact between the campuses?Jonathan Bach: We want to unify the Site Ambassadors Program. NYU is doing something special and unique. It is trying to create a new category in education by allowing for students to circulate around the world. It strongly believes that learning should not only happen in a single classroom but in multiple classrooms at multiple locations. However, this cannot be accomplished without the help of students. Currently, even though students can travel abroad and study around the world, their experience is undoubtedly restricted by location. We want to liberate the student experience as much as possible. This occurs when academics are no longer a concern for students traveling abroad because they don’t need to worry if certain classes fulfil their major. What they will be focusing on is pushing their interests and passions around the world, whether that is through internships, global clubs, or anything else extracurricular. They will be organizing themselves to study in such a sophisticated manner that they’ll say, “We are not students of New York, Abu Dhabi or Shanghai… we are students of the world.” Could you imagine a time when our degrees no longer are tied by location either? That is something I one day hope for. What plans do you have for this upcoming semester? Are there any upcoming projects or collaborations we should look forward to?Kenny Song: We’re currently working on planning the Global Day of Service, organizing and connecting clubs across campuses, and establishing the site ambassadors program and handbook. Jonathan Bach: We are working to facilitate a Global Service Initiative, Global Hackathon, and Global Ally Week. We are also aiding a few clubs who hope to host global events and the Site Ambassadors are full of ideas to implement at their respective global sites. We have heard that you and the GAC are in charge of getting student input to the NYU Board of Trustees regarding John Sexton’s successor. Can you tell us more about this search, anything we should know or look out for, how the three campuses are collaborating and working together for this? Do you know how the other campuses feel about this and their reaction?Kenny Song: The Global Affairs Committees on each campus helped coordinate open listening sessions with members of the Presidential Search Committee (PSC) and students from each campus and the study away sites. Essentially, the PSC is looking for student feedback on what qualities we want to see in John Sexton’s successor. We had our listening session in Shanghai back in October, and received a lot of great thoughts on the process. I can’t speak for the other campuses, but I’d assume their thoughts and concerns are very similar to ours. There may be more listening sessions in the future, but if not, the PSC can always be reached at [email protected]. Jonathan Bach: No comment on the search. We have set up presidential search meetings around the globe so that students could voice their opinions regardless of location. Other than New York and Abu Dhabi, how are we contacting the other GNU sites? How are we increasing their involvement in the GAC?Kenny Song: It’s definitely harder to maintain a connection with the study away sites since they don’t have a fixed student government. However, we’ve worked with them previously on hosting collaborative Presidential Search Committee hearings and communicating with our site ambassadors on the ground. We’re looking forward to exploring new opportunities to connect our campuses, especially for when the first batch of NYU Shanghai students leave the nest next year. Other than Shanghai and Abu Dhabi, how are you contacting the other GNU sites? How are you increasing their involvement in the GAC?Jonathan Bach: We have multiple site ambassadors at almost each location. We have connected them with the Site Directors. These students host town halls and help facilitate global events. What advice would you have for your potential successors? Kenny Song: Take the foundational work from this year and run with it! I hope your projects next year will directly affect us in all of our study away sites. Jonathan Bach: There is no such thing as a perfect plan. Be flexible, eyes fixed on the long term goals, but don’t worry if the details change. This article was written by Rae Dehal. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Marjorie Wang