Every year, the various governing boards show off cool Power Points and generally grovel before the Funding at Columbia University committee (known by the almost-scandalous abbreviation F@CU) for a nice cut of your student life fees. This year’s numbers were just released, and the various allocations are as follows:

• Activities Board at Columbia: $366,303.61 ($413,607.22 $473,527.31 requested, $307,516.00 allocated last year)
• Student Governing Board: $184,109.54 ($217,636 requested, $189,620.62 allocated last year)
• Club Sports Governing Board: $176,821.57 ($221,580.00 requested, $198,661.25 allocated last year)
• Inter-Greek Council: $18,254.20 ($34,970 requested, $23,565 allocated last year)
• Community Impact: $68,571.09 $68,511.09 ($104,055.00 requested, $79,917.15 allocated last year)

Sources also tell Bwog that there was an across-the-board cut of 15.08% from F@CU’s original recommended allocations. Letters justifying the various allocations should be on F@CU’s website soon are now on F@CU’s website.

UPDATE: Bwog has received a second tip, this time from CCSC VP for Funding Nuriel Moghavem, correcting two inaccuracies in the numbers we originally received. Most notably, ABC’s request was about $60,000 higher, meaning that they were not given more than they requested before the across-the-board cut. As for that 15.08% cut, Moghavem explains, “we added up all our recommended allocations for the governing boards — $958,582.36, looked at the amount of money that we (CCSC, ESC, GSSC, SGA) were able to contribute — $814,000.00, and cut all GBs evenly at 15.08%.”

- JCD 

The Hermione-to-Columbia rumor machine continues to be more active than anything ESPN Insider has to offer (yes, that was a sports reference – just move along). Previous rumors (which we and our commenters were skeptical of) were based an entry in the Columbia University directory, but now British tabloid The Daily Mail is reporting that, in the August issue of Elle, Watson confirms that she will be headed to Morningside in September.

Unfortunately, the article, in typical British tabloid tabloid fashion, doesn’t actually quote any excerpts saying she’s definitely coming, and quick check of the local magazine racks turned up no copies of the Elle issue in question. But fans may continue to live in hope.

In the most noticeable cost-cutting measure so far, Lerner Hall Operations Executive Director Honey Sue Fishman announced in an email to the student council presidents that, “given these extraordinary economic circumstances,” Lerner Hall hours will be reduced, and the computer lab and Cafe 212 seating will no longer be open all night.

“All departments and schools,” Fishman wrote, “have been asked to identify opportunities to reduce expenses and lower the overall budget. Our goal is to make reductions with the least impact to academic business, student life and the broader campus community. After careful review and consultation with elected student representatives, it has been determined that changing the operating hours and services of certain buildings will have a significant impact on efforts to contain costs across campus.” The changes:

• The Cafe 212 seating area, the Citibank ATM, and the Lerner Computer Lab, once open 24 hours a day, will now close overnight. Closing time will be at 1:00 a.m. Sunday-Wednesday, and 3:00 a.m. Thursday-Saturday, so most of your drunken late-night ATM visits will still be possible.
• The building will open one hour later in the morning (8:00 a.m.)
• The package center will open at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and will be closed on Saturdays.
  
• Lerner will only remain open 24-hours-a-day during reading week and final exam periods.

No other buildings were mentioned as being considered for reduced hours, but perhaps closing 403 for 6-12 months will finally get rid of that stench. Fishman’s email after the jump.

- JCD (photo: Samat Jain/Flickr) Read more…

A few days ago, we reported that the CVS on 96th Street and Amsterdam would be using Flex, partly at least because, according to Student Services, other neighborhood drugstores “have not responded to our invitations to join the program.” However, when Bwog checked in with Duane Reade’s manager, we learned that there may be hope yet for Flex at a closer drugstore. According to the manager, “Students have been coming in and telling me about Flex,” for awhile, and he “sent in the paper work about a year ago.” As for the paperwork going through, “apparently they’re going to be using a lot of Flex next semester so it’ll hopefully be ready by fall.”

In sadder retail news, JAS Mart at 110th and Broadway has shut its doors, according to a sign on said doors, and Morningside Books, after a temporary donor-induced respite, now has signs saying “We are ACTUALLY closed this time.”

- JCD, ECS, and JYH

According to City Room and the New York Post (whose take on the story is fittingly more sensationalist), two workers suffered serious burns this morning at Columbia University Medical Center. One worker suffered burns over 70 percent of his body, and was in critical condition at Harlem Hospital.

The fire took place at 9:44 am this morning. According to City Room, the workers were cleaning pipes leading to a hot water tank, when a halogen lamp was turned on, causing a fire as it interacted with the cleaning solution. The man with the most critical burns was taken to Harlem Hospital after “taking a turn for the worst,” an official said. Bwog hopes to have more shortly.

JustJared claims to have uncovered proof that Emma Watson, aka Hermione Granger/face of Burberry, will be attending Columbia University. This follows rumors linking the actress to Yale, Harvard, and Brown, but, using knowledge of Ms. Watson’s many other names (“her birth name is Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson”), they say that the directory entry at right corresponds to her.

We know what you’re thinking: “The School of Continuing Education? That’s not an undergraduate college!” Well, yes and no: the School of Continuing Education (the youngest of Columbia’s schools) does not offer any undergraduate degrees. It is, however, open to non-matriculated students, including students who want to take classes between high school and the start of college; these students can effectively take whatever courses they want while enrolled. If this is Watson’s entry, though, she would have to enter another school to get a degree. Somehow, though, we doubt this “degree” issue would prevent Wikipedia users from claiming her for Columbia.

UPDATE: A commenter points out that there is already a Charlotte Watson on LinkedIn who is enrolled at the School for Continuing Education. Sigh.

There’s now a drugstore option for your Flex points, but you’ll have to walk to 96th Street (aka “the ends of the Earth”) to use it. According to an email from Student Services’s Michael Novielli, the CVS at 96th and Amsterdam will be accepting Flex “by the end of July.” 

As for other, closer options, Novielli wrote, “We realize that other neighborhood drugstores are popular with students, but they have not responded to our invitations to join the program so we wanted to have at least one drugstore option for you on it.” Novielli declined further comment on why chains like Duane Reade and Rite Aid did not step up to the plate. Perhaps they feared being unable to handle Flex’s lightning quickness.

Still, at least the faraway land of 96th and Amsterdam is now under the domain of Flex. But beware, traveler: Bwog hears that the natives don’t even have an opinion on GS students. The horror.

If this new-fangled Twitter thing is to be believed, there’s some big things a-poppin’ in Iran, and the world media has been calling up Columbia professors for their reactions. The man with the most screen time this time around has probably been Professor Gary Sick (at right), which is not surprising given that he was the “the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis.” That’s the kind of bullet point that gets attention, and Sick has been quoted all over the media, including the BBC, The Daily Beast, the Washington Post, and Politico. Plus, somewhat fittingly, you can follow him on his Tumblr account.

Other professors are getting in on the act as well, including Hamid Dabashi, Phillip Bobbit, and Richard Bulliet. The most creative commentary, though, has come from Ph.D. candidates Alexandra Scacco and Bernd Beber, who argued in Saturday’s Post that the election results were likely rigged because the numbers did not look random enough. Trust us, it makes sense.

In non-Iran news, one group of Columbia professors have discovered two brain systems used to accurately predict others’ emotions, and another group has found that the subway is 15 decibels quieter than it was three years ago. Also, Meghan McCain appears to have dedicated her post-election career to one proposition only: embarassing herself as much as possible. 

You may have heard that SEAS is  bringing in an outsider, Feniosky Peña-Mora, to be its next dean. This may bring a tide of change for the oft-forgotten school on the windiest corner of campus, which has been governed for the last two years by a fatigued physics professor.

Certainly, in his last email, PrezBo assured us he’s qualified, but will he fit in?  The New York Times caught wind of it and, wide-eyed, spilled the beans on this mysterious figure.

First, we ensure that he is a proper engineer.  At the age of 7, he used Popsicle sticks to bridge his sister’s Barbie world with his own.  “Feni” then grew up to work on the Big Dig in Boston.  Real-world impact?  Check.

Second, we verify that he has some donor-pleasing personality quirk.  The Gray Lady informs us that when naming his children Feni “employed an algorithm that factored in such characteristics as the parents’ and grandparents’ names, the children’s birth weights and the months of their conception and birth.”  Offspring who will never forgive him?  Check.

Last, PrezBo loves him.  Always eloquent, he mumbled something to the Times reporter about “upward trajectories” before saying, “He [Peña-Mora] came to the last meeting with a PowerPoint presentation.”  Bureaucratic conformity?  Check.

Welcome to SEAS, Feni.  We’re pretty excited.  You know, for Columbia.

—AB

Ornithologist-about-town Jon Hill sends along the remains of the meal.

Turns out Morningside Books isn’t shuttering up so fast after all. 

“Yes, we are still here,” proclaimed a sign posted outside the store, “many of you are wondering ‘what is going on?’ So are we.” Yes, tell us more, Morningside Books, tell us more!

Basically, neighborhood folk have begun to make pledges to the bookshop to help the owner raise the $158,000 he needs to pay rent. An employee informed us that they have raised nearly $60,000 in pledges so far, but that the civil court judge is asking that those pledges be turned into cash. Morningside Books is surving on a “day to day basis” that depends on the sympathy of the judge and the amount of pledges the owner recieves.

As long as the store remains open, most books are half priced and the shop will most likely extend its opening hours to allow for more business and pledge-making. While one neighborhood denizen surveying the bargain bins outside noted that the whole operation “sounds like a bakesale,” you can still do your do-goody part by buying and pledging.

The owner, Peter Soter, finished the note hanging on the window by stating, “the whole affair has only made me more aware of how special a neighborhood we have.” Damn the Man, save the Empire!

                                                                                                                   -ECS

Yes, the endowment may have taken a plunge in recent months, but you may have noticed the news was largely lacking in stories about spending cuts around Columbia. Contrast that with our friends in places such as New Haven, Princeton, Ithaca, and (especially) Cambridge, all of whom knew long ago that cuts were on the way.

Now, the New York Times reports that, despite a 22 percent hit on the endowment, Columbia’s budget will increase spending 0.4 percent. That’s still a decline after adjusting for inflation, technically, but, as the Times puts it, the amount is “is essentially flat and avoids the severe cuts faced by its peers.”

How is Columbia making it through relatively intact? According to the Times, “Columbia does not rely on its endowment nearly as much as its peers do; about 13 percent of its annual operating expenses are met with income from its endowment, which was valued at $7.1 billion on June 30 last year.” By contrast, Princeton has relied on its endowment for 45 percent of expenses. This is not to say that cost-cutting has been non-existent, “but mostly the university has slowed the pace of hiring, creating panels to screen all appointments. Many of Columbia’s schools are not raising faculty and staff salaries for next year.” As a result, Columbia has maitained its AAA credit rating, something that institutions like Dartmouth have been unable to do. Turns out all those years of a struggling endowment did have an upside.

We’re a week behind on this one, but we hope that the hippies among our readers will appreciate the news nonetheless (and that everyone else will be amused). Last Tuesday, the Daily News reported that a “aging hippie with tenuous ties to Columbia University” was arrested on drug selling charges the day before.

49-year-old William Delp “is accused of selling undercover narcotics detectives LSD, Ecstasy and pot, sources said. He was charged with drug sale and possession….Delp is listed as a casual employee at Columbia University’s Visual Arts Division, where he was an artists’ model, but never an instructor, sources said.” Columbia is refusing to comment, citing the “ongoing” investigation.

Of course, no tale of a neighborhood dealer would be complete without the disbelieving neighbor.”I’m totally shocked,” his neighbor Jonathan Perez, 27, told the Daily News. Then again, it’s also true that “he was always a pretty cool guy. He’d always give the peace sign.” Mr. Perez, we’re not children of the 60s either, but…c’mon.

A Siberian location and even chillier service appears to have put yet another Morningside Heights business on ice.

Café Fresh seems to be the latest victim of These Economic Times. With its windows covered over with butcher paper and all signs removed for the exterior, the brusque coffeeshop looks vacant from the sidewalk. Some patrons also report the café closing unusually early Saturday at noon, which may have been a very last last call. 

Strangely enough, a Craigslist ad was spotted last October offering for sale a coffeeshop that matched Café Fresh’s description. Though managers denied the ad was their doing, a little Internet wheelin’-and-dealin’ may not have been such a bad idea in retrospect.

Let the calls for a Five Guys or Chick-Fil-A begin.

UPDATE (10:30 a.m., Monday): Did sanitation violations kill Café Fresh?

Read more…

Remember that husband-and-wife pair who stole almost $200,000 from Columbia? John Bzdil, former manager of the Pediatric Neurosciences Department, and his wife Heather Rinehart were accused of defrauding Columbia out of thousands with fake bills. Well, those who thought this Bonnie-and-Clyde story would not get any better did not anticipate a good ol’ slice of Law and Order: SVU suddenly showing up.

According to the Daily News (via Gothamist), the husband has pled guilty, but now claims “he bilked $180,000 from the Ivy League school to punish officials who brushed off complaints that a male boss was regularly groping him.” “Subconsciously,” he told the judge, “I was trying to make them pay attention to my situation and protect me from [him]. I felt deep shame for what he was doing to me and my inability to make him stop.” The accused, then-finance director Cesar Rodriguez, has denied the allegations. Regardlesss, Bzdil faces 21-27 months in prison.

Also, the case is no longer a couples affair: charges against Rinehart were dropped after Bzdil said she had nothing to do with the theft. Now, Rinehart is filing for divorce; we wonder why…