89 CommentsLive from the SGA meeting– the votes have been counted!
56.9 percent of the student body voted. 768 students voted for the recognition of Greek Life at Barnard and 577 students voted against. Thats 57.1% for and 42.9% against. A difference of 191 students out of the 1345 students who voted. DSpar is at the meeting, and she expressed her satisfaction about the way SGA has handled this issue.
SGA will vote on whether to officially recognize Greek Life next Monday.
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89 Comments
@Yes. In line with what someone else explained for you, I meant that the 57% or so that voted for recognition is a majority of the people who voted, but a majority of the entire student population may not feel the same way.
@Anonymous SO YOU SHOULD HAVE VOTED. END OF STORY!
@they see me trollin' needs to calm their tits. it’s thanksgiving, go forth and stuff your faces with food or some shit. dang.
@.... i just dont understand why barnard deserves to get a columbia degree and our email addresses. seriously, what’s wrong with just getting a barnard degree and a barnard email address?
@how many times have you posted on this thread? Seriously, don’t you have something else to do? It’s almost thanksgiving. Go eat some turkey.
@man This needs to stop. Just goes to show the insecurities in BOTH institutions and it’s making Columbia University look bad, per se.
@Anonymous why are you so hateful? i can’t have a job because i go to barnard, huh? i happen to have a professional, paid freelancing job for a new york magazine that you probably read regularly. and i’m a sophomore. what about you?
@how about http://www.barnard.edu/president/inauguration/remarkbollinger.html
\inseparable separate institutions.\ is that a wording we can all agree on?
@Anonymous Thanks for writing an essay about your insecurities… I would say that you’re going be unemployed, but you probably have Columbia on your resume anyways.
@false i know a number of girls who got into both schools and chose columbia. i also know a number who got into both and chose barnard. \Nobody would go to Barnard over Columbia\ is a totally ignorant thing to say. to many, barnard offers everything that columbia offers plus more (and less, in certain nice ways—like a more relaxed core):
we can take all of your classes, join all of your clubs, start program filing before you can, and still get better advisers, student services that actually care: you can walk into urgent care without an urgent problem generally and get an appointment within minutes if you stick around, and our counseling center is very supportive. oh yeah, and we get the gardasil vaccine for free while you have to pay $1200 for it. it’s because our administration actually CARES about us, unlike your administration, according to everyone i know who goes to CC/SEAS/GS.
also, a lot of dancers, theater kids, architects, and urban study majors would choose barnard because, well, those departments are all located here anyway—and you don’t have to fulfill the columbia core to do them. our dance program is considered one of the best in the country despite not being a BFA program. orchesis is a barnard club. also, our creative writing program is highly renowned, and, unlike yours, you have to apply through the english major and many people don’t get accepted. the entire experience is much, much more personal than anything i’ve heard about yours from my columbia friends, and i know of several girls—and guys!—who say they wish they had (or could have) gone to barnard and not columbia because the faculty-student, adviser-student, administrator-student, and doctor-student, and every other student relationship, is about a million times more personal than yours.
oh yeah, and there are tons of other great things about going to a women’s college
so don’t make ignorant and inaccurate assumptions based on your idiotic, elementary knowledge of barnard based on some clichéd ignorant stereotypes that you clearly heard from someone else, because it makes you sound like a huge, misinformed idiot.
P.S. i’m sure someone has chosen barnard over harvard before. i have one friend who chose barnard over the university of cambridge AND lse because she wanted to be in the states and go to a women’s college
@chill yo I worked my ass off in high school, too: 7 APs, 2300+ SAT score, National Merit finalist, loads of extra-curriculars. And personally I’m pretty pleased to be at Barnard, and look down my bluestocking nose at Columbia kids who can’t seem to realize that liberal arts colleges are the shit.
@Anonymous If you really did achieve all of those things, then your college applications must have sucked or you’re probably asian.
@.... just admit it… you are either lying, or you have some huge deficiency. I had those same specs and got into columbia.
Or, you are just a complete fucktard and chose barnard over columbia. If so, I rest my case :)
@lili ^ The entire basis of that wimpy argument is demolished by the fact that I know plenty of Barnard girls who got into both schools.
As for “…..” he’s a loser if he needs branding to validate a person’s intelligence or college experience.
@come on I have no personal animosity against Barnard…but don’t even make that argument. Nobody would go to Barnard over Columbia..that’s almost as bad as a time a girl on here commented that she chose Barnard over Harvard. Gimme a break.
@lili I can’t believe that I stated a fact, “I personally know Barnard students who were accepted to both CC and BC and ended up picking BC” and you refuted it by saying along the lines of, “that’s simply not true”. You’ve bested me there. I mean, I’m just confounded.
@Anonymous Yo, I’d choose BC over CC. Who the fuck wants to do the fucking core?
@Anonymous Dear “chill yo”,
Columbia College is also a liberal arts college.
And this arguing would all be resolved if Barnard just embraced being the nice private women’s liberal arts college they should be.
When you apply to Columbia University as an undergraduate, you select CC or SEAS. Not CC, SEAS, or Barnard. It’s separate. And if you want to uphold your status as such a selective women’s college, then be a real women’s college like the rest of the seven sisters and establish some independency, so this argument doesn’t have to exist.
It’s nice that the schools interact and share library books and dining swipes (sometimes), but let’s be real. If you want to stand up for Barnard, be Barnard. Don’t try to be Columbia University – Barnard. Be as proud of your school as we are of ours. Don’t claim what you’re not. If you didn’t use Columbia University’s application and be selected from that highly competitive pool, don’t say you were. Say you were selected from your own highly competitive pool of women who go to Barnard because they want that experience.
@Roy Den Hollander I is mad and takin my moneyz ‘cuz u h4te men and dis provez it!
@Its elementary... This is, without question, the most offensive BWOG posting I have ever read in my four years at Columbia. And yet it just comes off as lame. Pathetic. Sad. Enough said.
@if you worked yours off you too…really just chill everyone its only bwog
@Its elementary... sorry, my comment was in response to the “fuck” comment… but even mis-placed, it says what it needs to well.
@fuck you barnard girls, i worked my ass off in HS to get into COlumbia while you girls just partied nonstop. now you got your little sorority recognition so go get wasted and laid wed-sun and leave us to our ivy league academics. to say the individuals are of the same intellectual capability at both schools is simply a joke. i know exactly the type of girls you were in my HS class.
@if you worked yours off then maybe you should just go get some ass too
@... since there seems to be some confusion around here about what exactly “trolling” is, i give you exhibit a.
there’s a distinct difference between arguing or having a bad attitude and carefully crafting a statement that is incredibly offensive, so much so that it most likely does not represent the author’s true beliefs, with the intention of soliciting heated responses.
a successful troll is one that generates very long and detailed repl(ies) where it’s apparent that those who reply were deeply offended.
@who the fuck do you think you are?
@exhibit b This is what teh interwebs call “feeding the troll”, don’t do it. If you ever get mad at the interwebs, turn off your computer and walk outside. The Internet is only serious business to /b/tards like me, we have better tools for troll killing.
TD;DR: Don’t worry about him ma’am, I’m from the Internet.
@Anonymous I am a Columbia College student. I respect Barnard as an institution that works with Columbia and is not made less by it. The students from that and every other school associated with Columbia University in any way create a more enriching student body and life. If we expect to be respected after we graduate we have to learn to respect others before we do so. Follow the golden rule and don’t hate on others because it does not relieve your stress, it only makes it worse.
@Alright, gramps Let’s get you back to your C-SPAN.
@... greetings! your password for today is: “starved”
in all seriousness, the exposure that i’ve had (albeit somewhat limited) to columbia greek life has lead me to the conclusion that it fills the void left by the absence of alternative living situations (welcome to manhattan rent) and as such, you actually end up with freaks and interesting people in greek life here.
i know there are a few coops. but certainly nothing like the usca in berkeley or the plethora of large houses filled with 8-12 residents you’ll find in most university towns.
@Anonymous jesus christ guys, give this whole barnard/columbia thing a rest
@GSer Noo, keep it going! At least it stops the usual GS-hating that goes on here.
@Alright, gramps Let’s get you back t0 your CSPAN.
@Anonymous Exactly. If you missed the poll that was the FIRST thing that showed up when you logged on to eBear, then you have no excuse to complain. Not to mention the SGA tables all over campus that were there to answer any questions– you could have easily asked them when the vote ended.
@Well, I think SGA should take into account the fact that it’s likely that the 57.1% may not be representative of an actual majority that feel that way at Barnard. While I’m sure all the girls in the sororities were aware of the issue and made sure to vote, everyone else didn’t even necessarily know this was happening. I, for one, knew it was an upcoming issue but did not know when the vote was going to be until it was already past. thus, I would encourage SGA not to assume that a majority of Barnard students believe that sororities should be recognized.
@Anonymous Did you register for classes? Did you miss the balloons, streamers, and signs that said VOTE NOW? IF you didn’t know about the vote, you really have no excuse. 57% of the student body voted… that is like 5x the amount that votes in SGA elections. SGA was tabling for weeks with non-biased information. They were all over the place.
It seems some members of SGA need to remember that they are ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES who were chosen to REPRESENT the wishes and needs of the student body. I cannot imagine a Barnard where SGA contradicts this poll… but given some of the crap, rumors, and lies that went down I am still hesitant to trust some of my student-elected leaders. I hope they remind me WHY i voted for them. I praise those SGA members who worked so hard to make this process so incredibly transparent and educational.. I really hope that a handful of bitter, gossipy, wannabe dictators doesn’t spoil the whole process and cause problems for SGA. Just because you don’t agree with those who voted yes doesn’t mean our votes don’t count.
@word well said
@Actually, no, I did not register for classes because I am studying abroad next semester, so I had no reason to be on eBear. Additionally, I live in Plimpton, so I am not hanging around on campus looking at tables and such. I only come to campus to attend my classes, all of which are in Milbank. Granted, it is to some degree my own fault for not seeking out the information, but I am not arguing that it was unfair that I did not get to vote. All I am saying is that the 43% of the student body that did not vote may have situations similar to mine where they, for some reason or another, did not know the vote was happening. It’s not as if the vote was on a yearly day like the national election day so everyone should have known it was happening. If everyone had voted, the result may have looked differently.
@On the other hand the people who didn’t vote probably care less, on average, than the people who did. If sorority sisters voted more, it’s because the issue affected them more and their voices should probably matter more.
@Anonymous Isn’t that against the principle of voting to say that certain voices matter more? One vote is one vote.
@Anonymous dude, the vote is the first thing that pops up when you log into ebear….
and come onnnn, its just some extra funding. youll live. i promise
@Anonymous “the fact that it’s likely that the 57.1% may not be representative of an actual majority”
Are you retarded? 57% IS A MAJORITY
@she meant that it’s not representative of the majority of the student body, not the voting student body. which it isn’t. 57.1% of 56.9% is 32.48%. That is NOT the majority of the student body.
this whole situation was handled shockingly. it was not made clear that this vote is for a Constitutional AMENDMENT, given that the Constitution currently states that sororities shall not be recognized. facts about other columbia clubs that are not recognized by barnard (there are tons, and none of them care at all), barnard being the first women’s college to recognize sororities, and the percentage of girls who do not get their first-choice sorority and/or do not get into panhel at all were oddly absent from the fact sheet due to, in the words of one sga member, being “biased” because it’s sometimes “their fault” if they don’t get in. (that’s what i call “blaming the victim.”) further, there is NO SUCH THING AS A BIASED FACT. this entire fact sheet and voting system has been fabricated and manipulated by the greek contingent of SGA. i have lost so, so, SO much faith in barnard through this
@Anonymous The other non-Barnard recognized clubs “don’t care” because *they* aren’t getting their budgets arbitrarily cut in proportion to their Barnard population as a result of not being recognized.
And get a grip – it’s not “victim blaming.” The Formal Recruitment system is set up so that if a woman maximizes her options, she will have the best chance for receiving a bid and 97% of women who maximize their options received bids in the end. That 3% were lost not because they aren’t welcome, but because they slipped through the cracks of a numbers game. The addition of a 5th Panhellenic sorority would likely make the number of women receiving bids rise to 100%, but Panhell needs a better support system in place before they can do that.
The voting system wasn’t biased – it was Yes or No. The fact sheet was simply that – a fact sheet. It rattled off a number of (probably meaningless) statistics and facts about Greek life at Barnard just to provide people with context. And the fact that sororities are prohibited by the Constitution was in there. If someone didn’t pick up on that, it’s not SGA’s fault. If someone wanted more information, there were an abundance of resources in place for them to do so.
57% of the student body voted. That’s more than has ever voted in SGA elections. If we can trust the election the president of our student body with 20% of the college voting, then we can trust this vote.
@she meant “Budgets arbitrarily cut in proportion to their Barnard population”? What does that even MEAN? Columbia is the one who’s been giving Greek Life the budget cuts. Barnard didn’t ever have a budget for you in the first place, so it’s hypocritical to only care about Barnard’s symbolic recognition now, when Columbia won’t pay for you, if you never cared about it when Columbia did.
Actually, it is “victim-blaming,” and throwing around euphemisms like “maximizing their options” just highlights my point. Individuals have the basic right to be as picky as they want about which clubs they want to join by virtue of going to this school (Barnard). You do NOT get that right in return. Once they don’t get in, regardless of how narrow-minded they are, that makes them victims at your sorority-recruiting hands. So it is “victim-blaming” because you are saying if someone doesn’t get the sorority she wants, it his the fault of her own close-mindedness. Her narrow-mindedness, further, is not your concern. (And anyway, where do you think it comes from, anyway? Dare I suggest that the sororities themselves have created their own hierarchy, that if I were to say “a top-tier sorority” or “the ugly sorority,” you would all know which one I’m talking about? I sure didn’t make those titles up.) And philosophically, discrimination does NOT get to go both ways.
The voting system itself wasn’t biased, but the sheet was. You actively chose to not only disregard exclusion statistics—i.e., number of girls that get rejected from their first-choice sorority each year (because your system demands that you do pick a first choice), and you actively DELETED a fact that was originally on the fact sheet: the fact that no other seven-sisters school has sororities on campus. I wouldn’t call it “meaningless” at all. That just shows how low your expectations are for Barnard students wanting to be informed. To use your word, it gave context. My guess is that most Barnard students wanted to be reasonably informed and read the fact sheet to achieve that end. If you think they could have just “educated themselves,” then you shouldn’t have written a fact sheet in the first place that disregarded facts that were just as relevant as the ones you chose to use but didn’t use. Funny that all said facts that you didn’t use (except the obvious one about Barnard’s current Constitutional phrasing) are the ones that would work against you, isn’t it? That’s bias.
Further, adding a new sorority so that the sororities are able to actively accept everyone does not change the principle that a) each student still won’t get the individual sorority she wants, and b) PanHel as a whole would still be exclusionary on principle. Adding a sorority would be a terrible idea. That’s exactly what we’re trying to avoid here. You’re exclusiveness and sketchy, subjective criteria for it make you illegitimate groups, and you don’t deserve our legitimation. Adding sororities would not solve that problem. It would suggest that we endorse your illegitimate practices. Exclusion should not ever be institutionalized and I’m appalled that you think it should. And even if by some fluke people overlook that and you receive the money you need to add a sorority, not only will you still be exclusive on principle, but a fifth sorority would inevitably continue to expand the rush pool until everyone at Barnard were in a sorority and the Barnard community was sororities. That is not what we want. If that’s what you want, switch to Columbia.
I didn’t say we couldn’t “trust” this vote, though I think it was stupid to leave this to a student body-wide vote in the first place and not even account for the faculty, who know far more what Barnard “is” and should continue being (a place that never would have been friendly to sororities in the past*). All I said is a fact: the majority of the school did not vote in favor of sororities. (In fact, the plurality of the school did not vote at all!) Then again, you seem to have a sketchy grip on what facts are and aren’t in the first place. (See “exclusion statistics,” above.)
*See Frederick A.P. Barnard’s writings on the matter in his contract with the builders of Barnard Hall that if a certain sorority were recognized, the building would be dismantled brick by brick; the numerous manifestos written by SGAs of the past as to why sororities are completely unworthy of our money/respect; and Judith Shapiro’s own remarks that were hostile to sororities during her period from 1986-1994. And tell me, are you really so confused as to why no one’s given you any respect for the past 100 years? Are you REALLY going to argue that all of this is based in “stereotypes,” and that those stereotypes are all “false”?
@hey don’t blame me! i didn’t vote!
^not a legitimate excuse, sorry
@haha yeah throw in GS to the recognition vote as well….
@Member of SGA 1. This vote was a NON-BINDING vote, but the SGA will weigh this vote heavily when deciding how to vote
2. The student life fee would NOT increase at Barnard as a result of this vote. No student would be required to pay more if IGC were recognized. Instead, the money that is already collected in the form of student life fees would be redistributed allowing some of the money to go to IGC. The money given to IGC will be distributed to each of the subcouncils based on need demonstrated in their FACU applications. The subcouncils will then use this money for programming events that are open to BC/CU community as well as costs associated with the recruitment process.
@BC'11 I really love how the part about our student life fee increasing was BARELY advertised throughout this entire process. Not everyone can afford an increase and this is just not cool for the Barnard women who are already struggling to pay for Barnard as it is
@ridic. yeah, it’s because they made it all “philosophical” as to take away your focus from the $$$. i mean yeah it’s a philosophical issue or whatever sure but $$$ is forrealz too.
@Anonymous let’s get real. if you had actually looked into this process instead of making up facts, you would have found out that recognition of sororities would increase SGA funding for greek life by $200. that’s right, it would move funding up from $1000, which SGA has historically given to panhel, to $1200.
for perspective, that’s about 0% of student life fees’ yearly total. So, please, save us the pity party about student life fees. they will not be affected by this at all.
@I would just like to EMPHASIZE this point. that fees would be going up b $200, not some disgusting amount that would actually make a difference in the life of a student.
@Anonymous Can we have a vote as to whether or not Columbia should recognize Barnard?
@.... i totally agree with this… giving barnard access to columbia email addresses and our degrees lowers the value of both
@Anonymous Yeah…because most people, once they see your diploma and/or CU email, they stop and think – Wow! Columbia! Wait a minute…isn’t there something called Barnard? Oh, your degree and ’email address’ (seriously?) mean less to me now.
@.... hmm let me see… a <10% acceptance rate vs. a 30+ acceptance rate for barnard…
let's just say columbia has its share of stupid people, but barnard is on a whole new level. You basically are cheating to get our ivy league degree
@Anonymous Does this have to come up in EVERY Bwog post?
The next time you obsess over your admission rates, do us all a favor, and look at the entire statistic. For the Class of 2014, Columbia received over 26,000 applicants, while Barnard received over 4,000 applicants. When Columbia has over six times the number of applicants that Barnard has, of course their admission rate is going to be much lower. Not to mention, that since Barnard only admits women, they already cut their applicant pool in half– if Barnard was coed, the acceptance rate for 2014 would decreased from 26.5% to a little over 13%.
@Anonymous Sorry. Would decrease from 26.5%, not “would decreased”. It’s almost 4. I’m tired.
@ah But why did Barnard only get 4,000 applicants? It’s because it’s just a naturally inferior school? A small, single-sex, somewhat obscure liberal arts school with an intense community that has a complicated and poorly understood relationship with a world-class Ivy League school in the cultural and economic center of the United States should clearly have just as many applicants as a school that is now one of the top 5 in the nation! After all, they cater to exactly the same prospective students and have exactly the same name recognition! So there’s really no excuse for Barnard to have so few applicants ;)
@*sigh* it was sarcasm…
@Just FYI we’re the most selective women’s college in the nation
@Anonymous technically…but Wellesley and Scripps have higher rankings and test scores
@Technically true but the rankings dont take into consideration the resources we have at Columbia and lets face it, Barnard is pretty limited without them
@Anonymous how are we CHEATING? we take the same classes…I get better grades than my Columbia friends…
@you're right most people dont do that because Barnard girls lie and put Columbia on their resumes facebooks, contact e-mails, If you’re that proud to go to Barnard don’t hide that by pretending to go to Columbia
@.... this is exactly my point–barnard lowers the value of our degree and email because you have all the companies looking at shit resumes relative to real columbia ones.
Plus the fact that the small (very!) numbers of barnard women who do lie and put columbia on their resumes, they TOOK ER JOBS!!!!
@lili Screw that. All the Barnard girls I know use their BC email for nearly everything, unless they just write their plain UNI down on (for instance) a CU club list, for convenience’ sake. Probably you’ve been exposed to mostly desperate girls who only make up a disproportionate percentage of the BC community, but that’s not surprising. Low-lives attract low-lives.
@Anonymous Oh, really? I thought it was idiocy like that that lowers the value of the degree. Silly me!
@Anon Barnard has always been an integral part of the Columbia UNIVERSITY community; I stress the word University here, as some people often purposefully confuse it with Columbia College. Barnard does not pretend to be Columbia College, but it is in all respects a member of the Columbia University community, and it should in no way be delegitimized by anyone who either disregards the University’s official stance on the matter, or is too preoccupied with stereotyping and making false judgments to see and understand the contributions Barnard has made at the University.
@Anonymous they key word here is ‘community’, and not ‘university’.
@Anonymous Barnard is not a part of Columbia University.
@Anonymous sga has already said that they will take this vote as binding, so it’s basically official
@NOOOO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Thank goodness I’m a senior and won’t have to pay for the sororities’ “charity.”
Also, the recaptha for this post is in German. Awesome, Bwog. I’m just hoping I don’t have to type an umlaut, because the word in the recaptcha is asking me to do so.
@option-u and shut up about “charity” for sororities. You already fund tons of clubs that you’re not at all involved in and don’t complain.
@Anonymous Let me preface my question by saying it is NOT a criticism of the voters, but a legitimate question due to my total ineptitude in understanding a bunch of the issues.
But why would people vote “NO” to recognition?
And who are/were the voters?
@$$$ recognition = funding the sororities
some people don’t want their student life fees going to student groups that they find personally offensive or are not directly involved in, so they voted against recognition.
@actually a lot of the opposition came from the LGBTQ community because they felt that greek life in general is not very inclusive or accepting regarding members of their campus community. also, a lot of people just think it goes against the ideals of barnard as a women’s college
@Anonymous that’s preposterous. I know of a quite a few members of the queer community in the sororities. even those you’d least expect! and these brave young women are open about it as well.
@Anonymous barnard isn’t really a women’s college. its more like a women residential community. barnard sold it’s sold a long time ago when it chose to leech off columbia.
@Anonymous Barnard didn’t chose to “leech” off of Columbia – as it was originally a pretty important part of the school prior to 1983. And Barnard pays a LOT of fees to the University. If any blood is getting sucked, metaphorically, it’s from BC.
@Anonymous How on earth is blood getting sucked from BC?
@ted cullen twilight obsession
@lili Well ISN’T THIS ORIGINAL
@BC 2011 I kind of agree, actually, in terms of Barnard being more of a women’s residential community than a women’s college. I mean, the majority of the classes we take are co-ed, most clubs (besides Barnard specific like sga and mcac) are co-ed and even our barnard-specific traditions like big sub and midnight breakfast include a lot of columbia men. it’s mostly just certain residence halls that are women’s only. and not even all of those are women’s only (plimpton and 600s has several columbia men living in them). i dont know if we’re necessarily “leaching” off of Columbia, since we do pay all the fees necessary, but i don’t really feel all too often that i go to a college that is distinctly “women’s only.”
@Anonymous NEEEERDS!!!
@anon wow…My faith in this school has been restored
@The Think Tank FTBs.
@NOOOO WHYYYY
@St.As is the best sorority of all