SWS

SWS

The USenate’s monthly plenary meeting took place afternoon in the Law School at 1:15 pm. Not to say that every meeting is smoothly deliberative… this one was a farce.

PrezBo started off the meeting, and blew through approving the agenda and and adopting last meeting’s minutes. During his remarks he lauded Steve Coll, new dean of the J school. And he talked about CU’s 8th (!) global center, this one in Rio. And then he said that the other three (three!) dean’s searches will be done this semester.

PrezBo asked for questions, because he’d anticipated the presence of Student-Worker Solidarity. Paige West from Anthropology (in cowboy boots!) raised her hand and asked to talk about Faculty House, but PrezBo said that he can’t talk about labor negotiations. That was that. SWS sat with its hands politely folded for the rest of the meeting.

Then there was some talk about a joint MBA/MA program offered by TC and the Business School. There was a little drama when it turned out that the language of the resolution only included private and independent and charter, schools—and not public schools. Which is par for the course for the B School, but seems anathema to the spirit of TC. So it goes.

Finally: the smoking resolution, which demarcated OK smoking zones. Lots of old argument rehashed:

Ex. If nobody followed our old rule, why would we make a new rule and not talk about enforcement?

Ex. Smoking kills—why not ban it?

Ex. How does parliamentary procedure work?

Ex. Why is Sharyn O’Halloran’s microphone way, way louder than everyone else’s?

A CBS senator called to amend the resolution to ban smoking all across the Morningside Campus. The amendment failed, 23-21-1. Our CC and SEAS senators voted against this amendment.

Then—

The Hon. Sen. Richard Sun called for a quorum, right as Sharyn was ready to call for the vote on the smoking resolution. The count revealed that only 43 senators present. A quorum is 47. So that was the end of the meeting. This is extra funny, because 23 + 21 + 1 < 47, as well.

Sharyn O’Halloran was very mad; no vote until next month. (It’ll probably pass then. And the amendment for a total ban will probably be reopened.)

We will leave you with a quote from David Lynch:

I quit smoking in December. I’m really depressed about it. I love smoking, I love fire, I miss lighting cigarettes. I like the whole thing about it, to me it turns into the artist’s life, and now people like Bloomberg have made animals out of smokers, and they think that if they stop smoking everyone will live forever.