Last month at our May membership meeting, members discussed science funding cuts, grave threats to international scholars, and how we will be taking action to fight for our careers at Caltech. It was in the context of these extremely pressing issues that our first executive officers and stewards were sworn in.
It would be an understatement to claim that we live in historic times. The federal government has set its eyes on California, with news of federal grant freezes to some California research institutions and the mobilization of the national guard in Los Angeles for the first time since the summer of 2020. Today, as many of us attempt to focus on our research, violence and brutality is being demonstrated by federal law enforcement and the military against our community in Los Angeles and Pasadena. And Trump has given no indication of slowing down. At such a moment, we will be working with Caltech’s administration, elected officials and other groups on our campus to respond adequately, and appropriately to these developing events.
We fought for and won a union contract that upholds protections for international scholars. The same power we exercised in our contract campaign is what we will leverage again in coming together to fight the funding cuts that threaten lasting effects to our campus and all of academia. Our solidarity and our collective action ensures graduate students and postdocs have a body to represent them. Every one of us has sworn to keep our campus safe, and to fight for a better Caltech in the process.
The members of the new Executive Board are:
President: Jasmine Emtage, G4 BBE
Vice President: Rohan Shenoy, G2 PMA
Recording Secretary: Nadia Suryawinata, G4 BBE
Financial Secretary: Kyle Nelli, G5 PMA
Sergeant-at-Arms: Dee Dunne, G4 PMA
Guide: Harshda Saxena, G2 PMA
Trustee: Ruth Moorman, G5 GPS
Trustee: David Abramovich, G4 EAS
Trustee: Soham Bhattacharya, Postdoc PMA
Head Grad Steward: George Yuzhe Zhou, G1 PMA
Head Postdoc Steward: Sam Dunham, Postdoc PMA
In solidarity!
UAW 2478 Executive Board