Don’t take them for granted

Following the referendum last week on election protocol CCSC is getting ready for the second half of the semester and the elections for next year’s council.  Some conversation were had on the controversial lockout policy as well as Deanitini’s wishes for freshman-senior mentorship.  Read on for clear-and-concise coverage of this week’s meeting from our correspondent Joe Milholland. 

This week’s CCSC meeting opened with President Chen addressing the recent special election. Newly elected class of 2016 representative Sarah Yee did not attend her first meeting because she was “defending Columbia’s honor” at a fencing tournament. As for the E-board elections, President Chen acknowledged that, while the vast majority of those who did vote voted in favor of the referendum, the referendum election got only an 18% turnout. “It was midterms” and “it’s not a super sexy topic” said President Chen on the low voter turnout. The council first voted to vote on the changes to the E-board elections, and then they voted on the changes to the E-board elections. The council passed the E-board election changes with no opposing votes and one abstention, from Loxley Bennett.

Of his abstention, Student Services Representative Loxley Bennett said “I just didn’t feel like it was very ethical to make this change so close [to the election]. I felt like there’s no way that self-interest didn’t play into it. So, I didn’t vote against it because I do agree with it, I just didn’t want to be part of the process because it just doesn’t feel right. I didn’t feel right, but it is a good move, and I’m really glad that it passed. I definitely didn’t want to stop it from being passed.”

A major topic of discussion at the meeting was Deantini’s desire for freshman-senior mentors. Class of 2015 Representative Kareem Carryl, who is working on this project, suggested using housing for inter-class connecting (assigning seniors who were in John Jay in their first year to first-years in John Jay). Class of 2014 President Conan Cassidy mentioned that a similar program from 2011 “failed spectacularly.” In a straw poll of which council members would have signed up for such a program, most council members raised their hands, except for Conan Cassidy, who, as Representative Liam Bland noted, actually did sign up for such a program. There were also concerns over the wisdom of making over-21 students and freshman mix.

In terms of fees for lockouts, three times after a student borrows a key, they will get and e-mail, and 4, 5, or 6 times after they borrow a key they will have a conversation with their Graduate Hall Director. The $20 policy for lockouts will stay, and if numbers do not go down, Columbia will hire someone to get numbers down with a cost “equivalent to all of Hartley getting new desk chairs.”

Other Updates:

• A “Where-to-find-it” document for funding has been completed by Class of 2015 representative Jackson Tse and will be released soon.
• There will be a town hall on what to do with Lerner Hall tomorrow at 6:30
• VP of Communications Peter Bailinson found from a survey of council members that 1.3% of their classes had exams before the CC drop deadline and .76% of class got feedback on these exams before the drop deadline. In SEAS, many people drop classes after the CC drop deadline has passed.
• Council members are working on major projects, such as the “Blue Book Initiative” that will give advising for majors, open data for CUIT, “un-messifying recycling,” and opening up study space in Hamilton.

 The way in, the way out via Shutterstock