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This series contains early drafts of the GSEU constitution and by-laws as well as some early correspondence with attorneys who provided advice on proper structuring of the group and wording of their official documents. There are also affiliation agreements between the GSEU and New York State, an agreement between the GSEU and CWA, histories of the GSEU, and some basic union fact sheets.

The majority of the documents in this series originated from meetings and activities conducted by the executive committee alone or in conjunction with the officers and members of the individual school branches. However, there is one folder of central school reports that preferably should have been filed in the specific series for those schools (ie. Buffalo organizing reports in the Buffalo series), but they are physically attached so that one school’s report ends and the next begins on the same page. Those few documents are therefore filed together in this series. Executive committee meetings seemed to be held at various locations around the state and it was not always clear whether material originated from executive action or steering committee action; therefore there may be executive material filed in the school series and vice versa. Other papers clearly belong either to GSEU school chapters or to the statewide executive committee and are filed accordingly. This series has many folders of meeting minutes and correspondence, but is supplemented by material on how to organize/mobilize, delegate assemblies, and steward information.

This series is divided into subseries by SUNY center school; each contains meeting minutes, correspondence, organizing reports, contact lists and other papers that show the daily and monthly operations of the SUNY school divisions of the GSEU Local 1104. There is considerable evidence of the connection between statewide executive committee members and the local branches of the GSEU as they worked to solve issues including parking fees, technology fees, tuition waivers, fair wage, and more. As noted above, there are considerably more files for SUNY Buffalo than there are for the three other schools, probably due in large part to Buffalo’s role as the birthplace of the union movement.

This series is a mix of statewide and individual school financial papers. Each folder is labeled accordingly so researchers can tell at a glance if a folder is related to a specific school or if it is executive committee information. Topics include cash flow reports, expense sheets, tax information, and budgeting guidelines. There is a select amount of material for each school and the executive committee, but no one category has a large amount of financial data, which overall is very scarce for this group.

These are a variety of newsletters published by the individual GSEU branches at each SUNY school as well as non-union publications that featured union news. There are also two folders of the GSEU Notes, which originated with the statewide executive committee and changed in appearance frequently over the years. Runs of any given publication are sporadic; there are none which have every issue. Of particular note for missing issues are: the Buffalo Times, the Graduate Quill, the GSEU Notes, the NYS Student Leader, and the Union Times.

Contains material from affiliated groups including the Graduate Student Organization (GSO), Student Association of the State University of New York (SASU), and Staff Association, all of which worked closely with the GSEU on matters of mutual interest. The success of the SUNY GSEU caused the local 1104 to become a model for organizers from schools in other states; the archivist retained any files from those schools that showed evidence of contact with the SUNY GSEU in this collection. Projects and causes that affected the group statewide can be found in this series, such as campaigning against sweatshop labor used for SUNY merchandise and the Citizen’s Mobilization efforts of the mid-1990s that protested the state budget situation. Many of the files related to healthcare and health insurance for student employees are in this series as well.

Series 7 contains an assortment of artifacts accumulated or created by the GSEU. Most are undated, such as the t-shirts and buttons, but are still a good representation of the opinions and actions of the group as a whole. Box one has most of the three-dimensional items while box two houses all of the photos. Only one package of pictures was labeled specifically by GSEU members with the event and date. Finally, there are two oversized folders with GSEU posters, some professionally printed while others are handmade.

This series contains an array of documents that represent individual member information of a sensitive nature. The applications, grievances, and surveys are from all four SUNY center schools.