The Study Day-Standoff: Last night’s CCSC meeting saw unanimous passage of a proposal to start the academic year a week earlier when Labor Day falls on September 5th or later. The passage was the first step by the councils towards forming a united undergraduate front in advance of Friday’s University Senate Plenary, in the face of what council members called “intractable” opposition from the Senate Education Committee. The proposal next goes to the other three undergraduate councils, where it’s expected to be passed, before debate begins on the proposal in the Senate on Friday. Senate sources told Bwog not to expect a vote on Friday however.

The New Meal Plan: As part of his visit to CCSC, VP for Student and Administrative Services Scott Wright announced a new meal plan for next year. The important points:

• First-year meals will be by week rather than by term (either 19 or 15 per week)
• JJ’s and Ferris will join John Jay as all-you-can-eat for the price of one meal, with the latter being open from 7:30 am – 8:00 pm six days of the week
• The number of meals will go up, but Dining Dollars will decline significantly, to no more than $200 per semester
• In total, students will be limited to four meals per day – “and after that,” Wright said, “we’ll send you to a vending machine.”

Part of the reason for the change is that business at on-campus eateries like Ferris and JJ’s has suffered as off-campus Flex spending has topped $2 million this year. The full plan is available at Dining’s website.

Read more…

Between Culpa, Bored@Butler, and that thing we can’t pronounce, we have a relatively wide selection of websites developed by Columbia students that provide services exclusively for Columbia students. Now, a new one has been released: I Saw You Columbia, a site for student missed connections. Sweet, sweet young lovers are asked to indicate where they saw their desired mate, and can write a short message to them. The site has only been running for a few days, but Bwog already has a favorite: Female spotting Male: Lit Hum class– “When our legs touch under the table it’s never an accident.”

Our doobie-sparking cousins to the North have their own version, as does Rutgers.

Go get ‘em, tigers.

Because tens of thousands (jp, jp) of high schoolers and their anxious parents have arrived for tours on this rainy Monday. We want to set a good example, don’t we?

Roone Cinema was packed with overachievers waiting for an info session, and parents flooded out in streams to ask Bwog where the bathrooms were. Observe below: prospies and parents in Roone, and a wandering tour group.

The Greek gods just emailed Bwog to inform us that they created a Housing Calculator that allows you to see the number of groups with the same point value/group size ahead of you in Suite Selection. So, uh, that saves hours of printing, highlighting, stressing and planning. We’ve linked to it in the Top Box so you can keep calculating all day. You’re welcome!

Update: It worked for us, but hasn’t worked for others. Proceed with caution.

As part of the ongoing efforts to persuade the faculty to end the exam calendar debacle, the student councils have decided that numbers just might be persuasive and have created a PowerPoint presentation to outline just how many ways ending exams on December 23rd makes no sense. Instead, the presentation calls for starting the school year one week earlier in years when Labor Day falls on September 5th or later, including 2011, 2015, 2016, and 2020.

The bullet points, from a survey of 745 undergraduates:

• 51% of students left campus on December 23rd, and 52% of students paid more to travel home last semester, with 20% paying over $500.
• 78% of students said the late end to the semester interrupted family plans.
• 33% of students had to travel to the west coast or internationally for Winter Break.
• In slightly less serious findings, about 60% of students reported feeling unprepared for 1 or 2 finals, and 90% said they would have used a third study day to, well, study more. Only 58% said they would’ve slept more, which, frankly, seems biologically difficult at best.

Stay tuned for a full round up of last night’s CCSC developments later today.

- JCD

One of the greatest perks of an Ivy League education is having all sorts of guest lecturers and talks hosted right on campus. Yet many of these great talks are not publicized enough. Enter Bucket List, a weekly feature that aggregates these events in a single location that will hopefully make you realize, like Bwog has, how special our campus is. Our recommendations for this week are below; the full list is after the jump. Dig around, who knows what you’ll find!

• March 29: “President Sarkozy Keynote Address,” “Lower to the Ground: Mexican Migrants, Race, and the Naturalization of Social Suffering,” Iraq’s Transition to Democracy”
• March 30: “The UN and Development Challenges in a Time of Multiple Crises,” “College Democrats vs College Republicans: Citizens United Debate,” “The Politics of Lady Gaga,” “Culinary Society Tasting Competition”
• March 31: “Media in Iraq,” “Global Thought: Beyond Marx and Keynes,” “How Do Communities Organize on Campus?”
• April 1: “Global Thought: Neo-Liberalism, Secularism, and the Future of the Left in India,” “The Marriage-Go-Round: Partnership Turnover and Its Consequences for Parents and Children,” “Fantastic Phallicism,” “Religion, Peace, and International Law: A Genealogy,” “The Leap of Ersatz! A Visual Poem”
• April 2: “The Challenges of Integration – Muslim Immigrants and Their Children in the United States and France”
• April 3: “Live from Death Row: Mumia at the Crossroads in the Age of Obama,” “Fiddler on the Roof”

Read more…

The entire west side of 116th and Broadway is filled with fire trucks and emergency services vehicles: someone was hit by a train at the 116th 1 stop minutes ago. One police officer Bwog asked reported simply that someone was hit, and could not tell us whether the person survived or not. Another police officer, however, informed a tipster that it was a suicide, and someone jumped in front of an oncoming train. Check back for updates.

Update, 11:27am: Another police officer confirms the suicide.

Update, 11:40am: A list of service disruptions can be found on the MTA website. The 116th station is closed.

Update, 11:48am: A few of the fire trucks have cleared away, but a police officer informs us that the investigation could take a while. Bwog saw a few NYPD investigators flashing their badges to get down into the station.

Update, 12:13pm: A police officer Sources informed Spec that it was an “older man,” either an “older” or “fairly young” male, but no word yet if he was Columbia-affiliated or not.

Update, 1:25pm: According to his ID, the victim was born in 1991, but was not a Columbia student. All police officers and emergency services vehicles have cleared 116th Street.

Update, 3:57pm: The MTA reports regular resumed service on the 1 line; Spec has compiled a list of psychological services resources.

Lottery numbers—yeah, we’ve been incessantly refreshing just like you. Log into StarRezPortal, go to “Applications,” select next year, and your lottery number is under “Registration Summary.”

So. How’s that Claremont suite looking now? Remember to look over our housing updates, info, advice, strategies, gossip and overheards and breakdowns here. Remember: it’s the 2010 Housing Lottery: Your Best Mistake Ever!

Update: All lottery numbers have been posted sorted by priority and UNI. How we envy you, jrs2171. And Godspeed, ie2139. May your future be shaftless.

Update 2: Overheard in a class with laptops out:

Professor: “I’m curious to know what was on that screen…” (after seeing a student behave irregularly)
Student: “Lottery numbers are out!”
Professor: “Housing lottery numbers… I’m sorry. No really, I’m sorry. I know that process really sucks.”

There’s a line of black SUVs spanning College Walk. Which one do you think he’ll choose?

Photo by DH

Yesterday CCSC released its list of party tickets for the 2010-2011 year. The following are running for the executive board; class council candidates are below the jump.

The Naked Party

• President: Eugenio Suarez
• VP of Campus Life: Opal Hoyt
• VP of Communications: Laura Gabriele
• VP of Finance: Stephanie Wilhelm
• VP of Policy: Beezly Kiernan

Stand Columbia

• President: Learned Foote
• VP of Campus Life: Andrea Folds
• VP of Communications: Karishma Habbu
• VP of Funding: Brandon Christophe
• VP of Policy: Andrew Nguyen

Renew C.U.

• President: Isaac Lara
• VP of Campus Life: April Simpson
• VP of Communications: Melissa Ann Im
• VP of Finance: Alex Powell
• VP of Policy: Anum Akram

Read more…

James Franco: current Columbian, NYUer… and future Yalie? (Yale Daily News)

Mystery surrounds an early morning stabbing on the 2 train. (NYT)

Is CUNY full of the city’s ignominious? (NYP)

Will pulling up your pants help fight crack? (Gothamist)

Still not much is known about the future of GSAPP associate professor Lionel McIntyre. (Spec)

Update: There’s a police investigation at the 116th Station, and Manhattan-bound 1 trains are running express from 137th Street to 96th Street. Updates to follow.

Sexiness via Wikimedia Commons

It may have been the first week of spring, but Mr. Sun had yet to rear his golden head. Lots of rain was in the forecasts this week, and campus style adapted accordingly. The trend seemed to be towards deep tones, heavy fabrics, and dark boots; still, everyone expressed optimism about the warmer weather ahead.

Kim Smith, Visitor, College Walk

What brings you to Columbia? I’m visiting with my sister. I’m showing her around the area—Tom’s, the cathedral. . .

Where are you going? Oh man. Wherever the wind takes us. We’re looking for some good chocolate. . . we just went to Max Brenner; we went to Jacques Torres yesterday. I got a butterscotch milkshake in an Alice cup.

What’s your favorite dessert? Chocolate! Read more…

After nearly suffering a nose bleed from the 11 floor climb through IAB to hear Direct General Wadah Khanfar speak on“Media Revolution in the Middle East,” Sarah Camiscoli was both star-struck by Wadah Khanfar’s presence and impressed by his thoughts on current US Policy in the Middle East, his opinions on reclaiming the responsibility and the ethnics of journalism, and his genuine humility as he spoke to what seemed like the closest thing one could get to groupies.

Peter Awn introduced Wadah Khanfar with much excitement as “one of the most Powerful People in the World by Forbes Magazine, a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (Davos), the third most influential Arab in the world by Arabian Business, and one of the most influential Muslims in the world.” To this, Khanfar ironically replied, “Thank you for pronouncing my name correctly.” Awn snickered. He was flattered.

While Khanfar was equally as pleased by Awn’s enthusiasm and the camera phones that subversively emerged from the crowd, Khanfar tried to change up the tone by starting with, “I do not have many answers to the issues of the media. However, I will just share with you some thoughts and ideas.”

The first “thought” breached by Khanfar was his fear that news reporting is “drifting away from putting human being[s] at [the] center to putting centers of power and commercial at [the] center.” To speak to “the voices that may not be able to express themselves,” Khanfar told a story from his experience covering the war in Kabul. The depth of this problem became even more haunting to Khanfar after paying the bill for tea he and several young Arab men shared over a casual conversation about their perspectives on the war. When one of the young men realized that Khanfar had paid for the tea, he chased him down, scolded him for his insult of paying as the “guest” and had “tears in his eyes” as he begged him to allow him to take the bill—it was a tradition that he should not. Khanfar emphasized how the tradition, culture, and marginal voices that are often seen as outside of politics must be reclaimed as another center for reporters and policymakers. Read more…

Who knew such scandalous things were allowed in the Butler green zone? Not Bwog! An anonymous tipster sent in this image documenting the work of Columbia’s talented graffiti artists:

the Stacks aren’t having all the fun.”>Good to know that the Stacks aren’t having all the fun.

SIPA lobby vending machines take price competition to a whole new level:

Photos by ECS