Your survey answers will let the halls of Columbia ring with light and music!

You’ll be glad to know what the most recent CCSC meeting was about, since Bacchanal remains the one thing that keeps you up at night, as you ponder over equality and fairness. Joe Milholland brings you the deets about that and more!

Sunday night, the Columbia College Student Council decided to send out a poll to the student body about student preferences for Bacchanal this year, a poll which will include questions about possible ticket prices. The council will do this in co-ordination with the Bacchanal Committee. While the council already made decisions about Bacchanal last school year, they hope the poll will give them an idea of whether their decisions match student preferences.

VP of Finance Sameer Mishra and VP of Communications Grayson Warrick presented the idea to the council. According to Warrick, the poll will include questions on ticket pricing, what amount of money students would be willing to pay for tickets, the location of Bacchanal, and the Lion Tamers.

Much of the council’s debate came over questions about ticket pricing. Mishra and Warrick plan for the poll to ask if students want to pay for tickets in exchange for more stuff at Bacchanal – such as, potentially, free t-shirts, a higher-costing performer, or more year-round Bacchanal programming. Mishra promised that the poll would state what extras would be available for each increase in ticket pricing.

VP of Policy Vivek Ramakrishnan brought up subsidizing student tickets in the case that Bacchanal did charge, and President Ben Makansi said it is possible this poll could give Bacchanal bargaining power to charge for tickets.

Mishra defended the polling, saying that it was best to get the “true student opinion” about Bacchanal, and he emphasized that the polling wouldn’t necessarily change Bacchanal’s plan; “ideally,” the plan made for Bacchanal in the spring of 2015 would be re-affirmed by the students.

When voting on whether to send out the polls, 2 council members opposed sending out any poll, and 3 opposed sending out a poll with questions about price levels.

Other updates:

• The Mental Health Task Force is meeting every Monday night from 7-8pm at the Lerner SGO. Meetings are open to anyone affiliated with the university, and those interested should contact Ramis Wadood (rjw2138 at columbia.edu) for e-mail updates.
• As Makansi created a Google Doc for updates, the council discussed how individual updates should be communicated, such as whether the council should dwell on significant updates at weekly meetings. Consequently, the following updates are from this week’s updates Google Doc.
• Sandwich Ambassador Kaitlyn Loftus is “currently investigating the Great Dumpling Crisis of 2015.”
• Alumni Affairs Rep Daniel Liss is working to improve alumni networking with FLIP (First-generation and Low Income Partnership) students.
• The Campus Life Committee is “[l]ooking into S’mores roasting event in November”
• Ramakrishnan is pushing for student involvement in the search for a new dean of Student Advising.

Beauty in Truth via Shutterstock