REMARKS
Council Member Eric Dinowitz discusses CUNY's civic engagement efforts and suggests improvements
1:05:41
·
4 min
Council Member Eric Dinowitz addresses CUNY's civic engagement initiatives, focusing on opportunities beyond voter registration. He emphasizes the importance of engaging students with community boards and suggests ways to improve CUNY's civic engagement efforts.
- Dinowitz inquires about CUNY's involvement with local community boards and suggests this as an area for improvement.
- He recommends making civic engagement metrics public and increasing internship opportunities with local officials.
- Dinowitz emphasizes the potential for CUNY to become a "voting powerhouse" and the importance of student voices in addressing funding challenges.
Eric Dinowitz
1:05:41
We we've spoken a lot about voter registration and voter participation, which is sort of the baseline, I think, of of engaging people in our in our electorate, of course.
1:05:53
And the council, one of the ways that every council member engages with their community is through community boards.
1:06:01
These are They deal with issues.
1:06:03
Their advisory and they deal with issues such as like land use, which is huge in New York City.
1:06:08
And we help appoint members of those committees.
1:06:11
So we're we're very we work very closely with our community boards in general.
1:06:15
And I'm wondering if CUNY, through their civic engagement, has any efforts to work with their local community boards, much like we do, much like local elected officials do.
Staci Emanuel
1:06:27
No.
1:06:28
Not to my knowledge.
Erik Bottcher
1:06:30
You you notice, Yeah.
Eric Dinowitz
1:06:33
So it seems to me one of the the basic ways that people can engage in whether it's issue oriented or in their neighborhoods is to engage with the community board similar to efforts to provide internships with local elected officials.
1:06:49
And as we're looking for ways for students to make an impact on our city and on their community, that seems to me to be sort of a a a very basic one.
Staci Emanuel
1:07:00
I know that we do provide that information through social media.
1:07:03
Whenever the applications are open, we've done that through CUNY BOLT, and I know that Helen mentioned the participatory budgeting.
1:07:12
Right?
1:07:13
So mean, it's not necessary through community boards, but that's, you know, a way for a student to be familiar that community board boards exist in there for a purpose.
1:07:24
So
Denise Maybank
1:07:25
do you have any awareness?
1:07:26
Do you have any awareness I'm asking you.
1:07:30
No.
1:07:30
No.
1:07:32
Just checking.
Eric Dinowitz
1:07:33
Okay.
1:07:33
Okay.
1:07:33
Good.
1:07:34
Yeah.
1:07:34
It seems it seems that though, you know, outside of voting and registering, there are a lot of opportunities that are built in that don't take a a big stretch.
1:07:42
You know, placing a kid in an internship or a young adult in an internship is critical, but it's also, you know, a lot of effort to engage a student in a community board meeting because there's gonna be a giant development next to Kingsborough Community College.
1:07:57
And those are free to attend.
1:07:58
You can even attend online.
1:08:00
That seems to be an easier hurdle to overcome.
1:08:04
So I I I wanna thank you the panel for coming and all of the the help, the assistance I was provided.
1:08:11
Today, there's certainly a lot of work that CUNY is doing to engage our elector, but there's certainly a lot more that I think could be done to improve it.
1:08:21
You know, some something as simple as assessing yourselves using metrics and making those metrics public so that communities in the public can also provide their input.
1:08:32
You know, engaging with our offices, I don't think anyone would say no to an internship.
1:08:37
Gail Brewer never says no to an intern.
1:08:40
Actually, what do you have, like, 50 of them?
Gale Brewer
1:08:43
When I was born, then we had a 159, and now last time when we had 40.
Eric Dinowitz
1:08:49
Wow.
1:08:50
There you go.
1:08:52
Gail, it's all the interns.
1:08:54
But, you know, through through the metrics, through posting it publicly, you know, the the internships engaging with local organizations that already exists And I think what sounds to me like a a need to do a more systematic effort to do mail in ballots, there's lots of room for growth in a system that's already clearly important to CUNY.
1:09:17
Right?
1:09:17
Improving civic engagement, and really making the the CUNY system a, you know, voting powerhouse because we're facing a lot of challenges when it comes to CUNY funding, for example.
1:09:31
And I think it would be really powerful for CUNY as a system to to say, these are, you know, our students are coming out and droves and voting.
1:09:39
And from the perspective of students, really, really making their their voices heard, and really showing that it's time for elected officials to start listening to them a little more.
1:09:50
I wanna thank you all for coming and for the work you're doing.
1:09:53
Thank you.
1:09:53
And congratulations to miss Nestor's parents.