The baseball team won both of its games against Penn today, overcoming a 9-2 deficit in the second, to clinch first place in the Gehrig Division of the Ivy League. The team advances to the Ivy League Championship series against an opponent yet to be determined next weekend. The team last won the division in 2008.

photo via flickr/big league stew

There has been a lot of discussion over the issue of the academic calendar and exams on December 23rd. Today the Senate passed a resolution aimed at resolving some of the problems by allowing students to reschedule December 23rd exams. Dane Cook was Bwog’s man in the room.

This is what the University Senate looks like when PrezBo is there.

The Columbia University Senate convened this afternoon in the august World Room of the Journalism School for the last plenary session of the year. The session began by noting the absence of Provost Steele and President Bollinger (who has been called away “on business” to Washington D.C.), but Senate Chair Sharyn O’Halloran offered reassurance of the administration’s commitment to cooperation and involvement with the Senate and that their attendance will be encouraged in the future.

Among the range of topics addressed during the session, several stand out for their potential implications for students:

• Graduating seniors who have not yet landed permanent employment should take solace in the fact that the Alumni Relations Committee intends to focus its efforts on the development of career services for alumni. Currently, little to no such services exist, and the committee expressed the need to broaden resources and enhance communication.

• The budget review was resoundingly positive. Have no fear; the endowment is in good hands.

• The Information and Communications Technology Committee reported its findings from a recent survey regarding the effectiveness of technology throughout Columbia. Though still sorting through approximately 4,000 survey responses, the committee is particularly interested in the use of eReaders and hopes to cut down the University’s paper consumption in the near future. Also, Committee Chair Julia Hirschberg expressed support for a new system to replace Courseworks and noted the much-needed improvement of Columbia’s webmail interface, which she described as “awful.” CubMail, awful? You don’t say!

The issue of the day, however, was the resolution regarding finals scheduling. The resolution proposes a petitioning process for students who cannot stick around until December 23rd to attend a final exam. The new process piggybacks off of the procedure already in place for students to reschedule if they have more than two exams on one day. The resolution states as follows:

“No student at Columbia University shall be required to take a final examination on December 23rd of any year or later if such exam administration would present undue hardship.”

Chair Elect of the Student Affairs Committee Tao Tan (CC ’07, CBS ’11) was certainly pleased with the result. “This is a win for students,” he said.

But figure out your final schedule early: to reschedule an exam, you must submit a petition by December 1st, which must then be approved by the faculty member involved and your dean. Although this process may prove inconvenient, don’t fret over approval; the resolution states, “…there will be a strong presumption that the rescheduling request will be granted.”

Although more academic calendaring issues still loom on the horizon, it seems students have won this round.

The resolution can be viewed here (PDF).

Bwog’s rave-reviewed collaboration with the Culinary Club known as Cooking With Bwog 2.0 continues. On the menu this week: Avocado Crab Salad for the main course with Poached Pears for dessert.

Avocado Crab Salad
(Serves 4, Time: 30 minutes)

Ingredients:

Juice of 1 lime
4 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. finely chopped jalepeno
3 tbsp. chopped cilantro
½ tbsp. honey
1 garlic clove, minced
Seven Seas (or Indian if need be) Curry powder (about 1 tsp.)
Salt and pepper
¾ lb. lump crab meat
2 avocados, diced
Diced red onion
Red Tomato slices

Read more…

Butler Smells, Come to Hillel!
There’s plenty of study space, group work space, paper writing space, sleeping space, eating space, and more space galore! Hillel is open most nights until 2:00AM, from May 4th-12th, with a special ALL NIGHT at Hillel on Sunday, May 9th(with breakfast at 6AM), and Monday (5/10) & Tuesday (5/11) until 3:00AM.

Enjoy tons of free snacks during all afternoons and evenings, and a Free Cheesy Dinner at 7:30pm on the 3rd Floor Terrace of Hillel on Wednesday, May 5th. Hillel is located at 606 W. 115th St. & Broadway, across from Schapiro. All are welcome!

http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=113038332065334&ref=ts

The Columbia Queer Alliance is hosting their final First Friday event in Lerner Party Space tonight, on the last Friday of the month. It features a Drag Pageant with Columbia students and Saharah Davenport from 9 to 11, followed by a party until 2. So if you’ve ever wanted to see CQA’s board in drag or if you happen to be a huge fan of RuPaul’s Drag Race you should probably check it out.

More info is available on Facebook.

photo via CQA

The last issue of The Blue and White for the semester will be out in print soon. In the meantime, the entire magazine will be published on Bwog. Today Chief Ambulance Chaser Mark Hay Reports on CAVA’s ongoing battle for University support.

Illustration by Hannah Ford

Pre-existing Condition

Early in the fall of 2009, then-director of Columbia University Emergency Medical Services (better known as CAVA – Columbia Area Volunteer Ambulance) Krishn Khanna, SEAS ’10, quietly informed prospective members of the student-run EMS crew that the organization’s standard certification course would no longer be offered. Because of financial difficulties, St. Vincent’s EMS Education Program, which CAVA used to train its staff, closed its doors. In turn, students who wished to join CAVA were left stranded. “We assure you that our organization suffers the most when such a course does not take place,” laments Khanna in his communiqué, “as it reduces the quantity and quality of applicants for membership.”

Any student interested in joining CAVA must attain certification in basic life support, a collection of fundamental EMS skills that the St. Vincent’s program used to teach. From an applicant pool of approximately 30 certified students, 8 to 10 would be selected for probationary CAVA membership and a further semester of on-the-job training. This tiered application process generally kept CAVA staffed in recent years with 50 to 65 active members to respond to around 700 calls per year.

Read more…

Join the Barnard Ecoreps for the last Harvest Dinner of the year, from 5:30-7:30 on May 4!

Hewitt Dining Hall will be providing great food, mostly vegetarian with hormone and antibiotic free chicken!

Enjoy the beginning of reading week and the end of classes with fresh veggies from Long Island and other local cakes and candies!

Friday, April 30
5-6:30 PM
Satow Room, Lerner Hall

Join Columbia University’s Helvidius Group for the release and launch event of its annual publication, the 2010 Journal of Politics & Society.

Guest speaker Greg Callus will present on the emerging significance of new social media outlets in the political sphere. Article authors Andrei Stetsenko and Nishi Kumar will join him for brief remarks and a Question & Answer period.

The Journal of Politics & Society publishes superior undergraduate research in an annual publication produced entirely by Columbia University students.

***FOOD WILL BE SERVED***

There’s a bevy of free food available today if you know where to look. First, at 3:00 on Furnald Lawn, the Culinary Society is celebrating the end of the year with a fiesta. Get there quick for free tacos, beans, rice, aguas frescas, and tres leches cake.

Then, from 6:30 to 7:30 in the West Lerner Ramps Lounge, the Hapa Club is letting you make your own wrap/roll thing. Bwog is not really sure what the fillings will be (it looks like veggies and maybe some chicken of some sort) but thinks these will probably be delicious.

Update: The Helvidius Group is providing unspecified “food” at 5:00 in the Satow Room for the release of their Journal of Politics and Society.

Update 2: America Reads promises “tons of snacks, cake, Capri Suns” in the Broadway Room at 4.

Update 3, 3:50pm: Word on the street says that Pom is handing out free iced coffee on College Walk again. Quick, before they’re gone!

photo via flickr/nhanusek

The new Deputy Mayor is a Midwesterner, and a really swell guy. (NYO)

NYPD told the parents of Stony Brook student he died in a car crash, but he didn’t. (WCBS)

A new newsstand is opening at 116th and Broadway, causing drama with the one that already exists across the street. (Spec)

The Times’ Cityroom blog covers the Floridita closing.

Th AFL-CIO sponsored a protest of Wall St. banks downtown yesterday. (NYP)

Saturday, May 1
10-11 PM
Lerner Party Space

We know what you like. Old-school a cappella sung by some of the handsomest fellers around amidst the companionship of your collegiate brethren. You relish the harmonies of suspended fourths stacked under perfect fifths; you revel in the glory of masculine melodies and dulcet tones…

You also like free beer and pizza.

2 IDs to drink, 21+

Bring a water bottle for extra enjoyment. We certainly will.

Love,
The Kingsmen

For those that will be spending their weekend buried in textual evidence, this week’s guide is nothing more than a waste of space. But, for those who have lost all hope, check out your outlet options. And as always, visit insidenewyork.com for more.

Postscrypt Artsfest 2010

Support your local undergrad artists by attending this year’s art-expo. Help campus life come alive by spending the remainder of your Halal money on student art pieces and throwing paint in the “catharsis tent.”

WHEN: Sat, May 1st @ 3—10pm

WHERE: Van Am Quad + College Walk, Columbia University

PRICE: FREE!

N64 meets your NYC nightlife

Faile, two Brooklyn-based artists, have used their postmodern expertise to convert an abandoned store-front into a throw back video arcade. Expose the brilliance of their work by stopping by and zoning out in a few games to become part of their exhibit.

WHEN: Fri, April 30 @ 7:30pm, open until May 27th

WHERE: 158 Allen St (between Stanton & Rivington)

PRICE: FREE!

Last laugh before finals @ Webster Hall

This Saturday, check your budget and your dignity at the door at the Ford Fiesta Concert. Caitlin-Marie Miner, Monica Lo, Mike Del Rio, Sophie Dupin, and Charlie Tippie are performing at Webster Hall for FREE with an OPEN BAR and HAPPY HOUR specials. Expect greatness on Sunday morning. 21+

WHEN: Sat, May 1 @ 5pm

WHERE: The Studio at Webster Hall, 125 E 11th St

PRICE: FREE, but must RSVP here

Ditch Havana once and for all – Red Hook Ball Fields are OPEN!

Welcome the South-American food trucks at Red Hook Ball Fields for their summer premiere. These cheap pupusas, huaraches, arepas, and aguas frescas (Gringos, see wiki) will do you in.

WHEN: Every Saturday and Sunday Through October from 8am till sundown

WHERE: Clinton St & Bay St Brooklyn, NY 11231

PRICE: FREE!

In this installment of professor interviews we present Professor Frances Negrón-Muntaner — filmmaker/writer/scholar/everything who teaches in the Department of English & Comp Lit and at the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. Bwog’s Michael Adame sat down with her to talk cognitive channels of reggaeton, belt buckles and Ethiopian food in Morningside Heights.

So you’re originally from Puerto Rico. How did you end up at Columbia?

Well I was living in Miami with my partner and one day I received a phone call from the university. They were familiar with my film work and they said they had an opening. I said “What’s the worst that can happen?” Then I got it! And now I’m tenured, if you can believe it! It was never in the cards, never in the plan to be in academia, New York, the Northeast, the Ivy League. I’m doing everything I told myself I wouldn’t do when I was younger.

In class you’ve said you’re a big fan of reggaeton. For Latino Studies that may be a little expected. Any musical tastes that people may find surprising?

Well, first, about reggaeton, funny story: I was at a party and a friend plays me a Calle 13 song. She turns to me and says “I have no idea what he is saying.” So I listen—and I don’t understand what he is saying! So it became a puzzle. Engaging with Calle 13 presented different cognitive channels. Its Poetry of Filth. A Puzzle.

And other music. Well, I’m a big fan of opera. Oh! And Bhangra! My New Year’s resolution actually: learn how to dance Bhangra. It’s hard! With Latin dancing, the dancing I grew up [with], there’s a certain type of coordination that requires the whole body. Bhangra makes simultaneous movements not found in Latin Music. You have to rewire the body to really enjoy it. It’s great.

Personal question: one day a girl in class turned to me and said “Check out that belt buckle!” And I did—a bedazzled Madonna on your belt buckle…

(Laughs) Actually it’s a Guadalupe! And it was a birthday gift to myself one year. I picked it up from a street vendor in South Beach. And it is definitely a conversation piece. You go somewhere and suddenly — boom! Conversation.

I was at a conference in San Antonio and I met a women there who told me she knew who made it. She said it’s a particular Mexican-American designer and you can tell because there is a heart on the back. I took it off and sure enough, there was a heart on the back. Anyway, when I was there, I noticed how many Guadalupes there are. It’s got nothing to do with religion. It’s the memory and the history.

So suddenly I began collecting Guadalupes. People give them to me all the time. Artists friends have painted them for me, I have handmade little statues, kitschy items. Peruvian versions, Puerto Rican versions…I think I have 50 or so.

Read more…

Warning: V-Show producers checked in with Bwog to tell us that tons of people are buying tickets online and not picking them up. If that’s you, you should probably stop by the TIC to pick them up today, or else you will face huge lines before the show. Remember that lines are fairly long to get into the actual auditorium. Bwog helps you save time!

The legendary Original Vendy Award Winning NY Dosa Cart from Washington Square Park (not to be confused with the Dosa Man between 115th and 116th) will be on college walk from 4:30pm to 8:00pm. You’ll be able to get an all-vegan dosa + 2 appetizers for $5. Yummeh.