Gettin’ Heard and Gettin’ T-Shirts
Bwog Eager Inquisitor Chloe Eichler reports from Monday night’s CCSC Town Hall.
Last night, the CCSC asked to hear from you at its Town Hall meeting. And you told it to quit bothering you: you were going downtown to a bar.
The overwhelming theme was school solidarity, or lack thereof. In quick succession, students ticked off the symptoms of weak school spirit: Campus groups don’t communicate. No one goes to the football games. No one goes to the big spring events. No one goes to student government meetings. No one goes to student government town halls. CCSC responded positively, pledging to advertise campus events to death and taking any suggestions about facilitating communication between clubs.
The second major topic was the Council’s foray into technology. More than one student stressed the need for an online centralized listing to spread word about campus events further than two degrees of separation on Facebook. CCSC assured the room that this would be included in the long-awaited university portal. Other tech issues passionately raised were the dearth of working printers in residence halls and inconsistent wireless accessibility. More importantly, as one freshman delicately put it, “I’m concerned about CubMail” (who isn’t?). CCSC President George Krebs mentioned that Columbia could conceivably follow other schools that merged their e-mail systems with Gmail.
The ever-popular MetroCard student discount was brought up, but that project has been dropped in the current economy. A one-off discounted card, probably good for a week, is still a possibility. Miscellaneous proposals included working with other New York colleges on some big events (to which Krebs responded that he wanted to put on an inter-college dance competition), and resource sharing between clubs to eliminate wasteful spending.
The Council ended the night with its own hopes for next year – more collaboration with student groups, more transparency about funds, and as much communication with the student body as possible. The earnest good will in the room was palpable. Then the free t-shirt feeding frenzy began.
Tags: ccsc, school spirit, t-shirts? free-shirts!, townhall, When are we going to talk about democracy and freedom of expression in the US?
14 April 2009 @ 10:29 AM · 7 comments
Wow. After actually being present at an event that Bwog subsequently reported on, I can safely say that all the claims of Bwog injecting unnecessary snarkiness, as well as over-the-top eliticism and holier-than-thou sentiments into their reports, is undoubtedly true. As a completely objective participant (i.e. NOT on the council) I have to say that a fair number of good ideas were discussed, and found PresKreb to be remarkably attentive, interested and, most importantly, can’t seem to remember his ever mentioning any sort of inter-campus dance-off. But, thanks yet again to Bwog’s obsession with making every Council event, make that every school-related event, seem either ineffective, unhelpful or populated with individuals who care nothing about the material and just about the free give-aways (see “T-shirt feeding frenzy” above), this event seemed to exhibit all of these traits. I can’t say I expected anything different, but I’d love to see just one write-up about something other than free food, ridiculous mustachioed individuals posing for pictures with PrezBo or random Butler hook-ups, that actually portrays the subject matter in a somewhat positive tone. I’m not saying they have to sugar-coat goings-on at Columbia, but I know for a fact not everything associated with the school is absolutely horrible and deserves an article biased strongly against it.
who would want to read a straightforward account of a student council meeting?
Dude, it’s Bwog. People come here to read snarky comments, make fun of campus characters and generally hate on Columbia. We all love Columbia – that’s why we can mock it .
but it’s ok because I love you.
funny, ’cause this article from sunday seems to be positive “A first step, perhaps, but we doff our caps to the councils”: http://bwog.net/articles/alcohol_to_be_allowed_in_common_areas
Maybe next time you could use the time you spend typing out rambling paragraphs to practice your reading skills.
Guess I should have included alcohol on that list…And I apologize for not making a comprehensive list of every Bwog article ever written that applauds a group or issue, but that would have taken even more time than it took to type out my rambling paragraph.
Was this a blog?