Today, Columbia. Tomorrow, the world.

On this fine October afternoon, Bwogger Joe Milholland treks across campus to a spicy USenate meeting, in which everything from low income students to transgender rights were discussed.

PrezBo On Rules Administrator In University Life Rather Than Provost’s Office

“Within the administration, this was a completely obvious decision,” said PrezBo at this Friday’s University Senate Plenary about the controversial movement of the Rules Administrator form the Provost’s Office to the Office of University Life, which Suzanne Goldberg heads. Goldberg will serve as the rules administrator. PrezBo in his comments, which were prompted by a question from Graduate Senator for the Humanities Andrea Crow, said that both Goldberg and Provost John Coatsworth supported the change.

“It makes complete sense to take something like the rules administrator, which is overseeing the ways in which the rules are functional, and have it with somebody who’s looking all the time at students and their concerns and their issues,” said PrezBo, as he argued for this change.

“It doesn’t involve any change of attitudes within the administration about the role of the rules administrator – it’s really just where it’s lodged and where it will get the greatest amount of attention,” he said.

Rules Committee Chair Angel Nelson also gave an update on her committee’s work. The committee will work this year on the implementation of the rules. They want to train the members of the judicial board and work with the rules administrator.

Suzanne Goldberg Speaks About the AAU Climate Survey on Sexual Assault

“In many ways, the work of the Office [of University Life] is prompted by an awareness that Columbia is the size of a small city,” said Suzanne Goldberg about her new office before she talked about the Association of American Universities’ climate survey and Columbia’s reaction to it. Goldberg went on to outline a few things the university learned from the survey.

1) “In the overwhelming majority of incidents, students were voluntarily drinking before they experienced whatever gender-based misconduct they identified.”

2) “Most students – meaning a strong majority, actually – reported seeing somebody going off to engage in some kind of sexual encounter when the observer felt the student they were observing was drunk.

3) “We learned – some of it not very surprising – about the vulnerability of particular groups of students.” Goldberg said freshman and sophomore women report the highest rates of sexual assault. While the rates are lower for graduate students, she said, “They are not zero and they are not approaching zero.”

While women generally reported rates of assault in the survey, Goldberg said that, based on studies she’s read, “men dramatically under-report.”

Other groups that reported higher rates of sexual assault in the survey were “students who identify as not-heterosexual” and “students who identify as transgender, genderqueer, gender non-conforming, declined to state gender.” Goldberg said there weren’t significant differences among race and ethnicity.

4) “There’s data that shows most students don’t report these experiences formally,” said Goldberg. “A majority of students, when asked for the reason they didn’t report, said the experience wasn’t serious enough.”

“Of the students who said they didn’t report, one in five said they told no one,” Goldberg added.

In response to Goldberg’s presentation, Columbia College Senator Sean Ryan said that 82% of undergraduate women thought it unlikely that university officials would conduct a fair investigation of their sexual assault report and 70% thought it unlikely the university would take their report seriously.

Goldberg replied that most of the students surveyed hadn’t gone through the NSOP training that outlined the resources for survivors of sexual assault. She also said that because her office is new, the data wasn’t responding to her work. She also wants her office to increase its communication and noted her online form for feedback.

While responding to Ryan’s question, Goldberg that her office will develop a “challenge grant for students” to communicate Columbia sexual assault response options.

Another CC Usenator, Marc Heinrich, asked if the survey will be repeated. Goldberg replied that the survey took a lot of work

Quality of Life Survey

Heinrich, who is also the Student Affairs Committee Chair, presented some of the results from the Quality of Life survey from the spring. He mentioned 9,500 students responded to the survey, and the average overall quality of life was 4.94 (1 being very dissatisfied, 7 being very satisfied, and 4 being neutral).

While some areas had a small decline in satisfaction, Heinrich said that the categories important to students – like academics and career preparation – had a small increase in satisfaction.

Three categories of students, Heinrich noted registered extreme dissatisfaction: low-income students, disabled students, and transgender students.

Low-income students said their financial situation impacted their social lives and gave them academic struggles, which lead to a worse academic performance.

Disabled students generally complained about accessibility around campus because of physical disabilities. “It seems kind of obvious because we have a lower and upper campus separated by a gigantic stair case.”

There will be two subcommittees formed around this issues – one on financial insecurity and another examining issues around disabled students. Heinrich said that the Office of University Life will help ensure that students, faculty and administrators are represented on these committees.

A senator from the School of Social Work advised Heinrich to look at the issue of disability differently. “It might be, for example, that the physical campus is disabled, not the students,” she said.

Quality of Life graph from SAC’s report

Other Updates:

• On NYPD presence at the divestment protest, Heinrich said, “I think we’re definitely going to be working with public safety and others that whenever there’s that police presence, that students are notified, and that that police presence doesn’t come on for a small demonstration among students.”
• PrezBo said at the beginning of the meeting that “a year-long series of opening events” at Manhattanville will begin in the spring semester. He also predicted that Columbia would receive around $550 million in cash gifts this year.
• To clarify, Suzanne Goldberg is currently the EVP for University Life, the rules administrator, the director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law, a university senator representing the administration, and a blogger for Spectrum.

Super Senate via Shutterstock.