The sky is Pantone 292

This semester has been a big one for Columbia, from the graduate student strike to Barnard’s heated debates over the CUAD referendum. It’s been a big semester for Bwog as well, as we’ve added more sports, science, and cooking posts to our regular content. All of our senior wisdoms are up now, and we’re closing out the semester with our bi-annual semester in review.

To kick off the new semester, Bwog took time to remember the life of our favorite Mexican restaurant, Amigos. Bwog started its very own science column. Carman’s newly-renovated floors showed signs of problems as students lived without hot water and experienced other issues. We brought back our Cooking With Bwog after being inspired by all of those Tasty videos on Facebook. After months of endless whining, we created a definitive ranking of the campus elevators. We celebrated Bwog’s 12th Birthday!  To end the month of January, we broke down the statistics behind Columbia Buy/Sell Memes.

We started the month of February by going back in time to when Columbia Basketball won the Ivy League Tournament. Graduate students began to protest on Low Steps when Columbia announced that they would not bargain with the Graduate Student Union. Martha Stewart came to campus to give us her words of “wisdom.” President Sian Beilock was inaugurated and met with protests.

Koronet temporarily closed for renovations, leaving thousands of students without jumbo slices. We took a look at how Datamatch could bring love to this sad campus.  ESC made some bold moves and impeached its president.  We asked some important questions, like “Who said it: me about a dog or a Columbia fuckboy about a girl?” Bwog also took time to read some of your meanest comments. (Don’t worry, we still love our readers. :) )

March started off strong when we boldly declared that all the chairs are wrong. We also started a finance column, for all of your student finance needs. Meanwhile, up at the medical school, famous neuroscience professor Thomas Jessell was dismissed for undisclosed reasons.

Due to late winter snowstorms, classes were cancelled on one Wednesday afternoon early in March, then for a full day on a Wednesday two weeks later, making us really jealous of everyone with Wednesday 4-6 pm seminars. We sought warmth over spring break, then returned to campus to find Nussbaum & Wu briefly closed by the NYC Department of Health. M2M followed the sad trend of independent MoHi businesses that same week, closing its location on Broadway and moving downtown.

Bwog got informative, with explanations of how to get any on-campus job you might want (maybe in the wrong semester?), a definitive guide to 1020, and a guide to skincare for bros. We also let you know that no, the Barnard Dad Hats aren’t coming back, and we’re really sad about it.

Ann Coulter came to campus, but campus activists had better things to worry about. Specifically, they started planning how to support a potential student union strike, which was discussed at panel in the last week of March. Bwog’s classics majors (but mostly Youngweon) started a column on issues that classics students face at Columbia, and providing wine recommendations, starting with the reasons why Hamilton needs another elevator.

In April, housing selection seemed to go poorly for basically everyone. Bwog broke up with our freshman-year roommates and tried to fight stress culture, but Columbia just made our lives worse again by announcing that renovations will cause students living in EC to have no stoves or ovens next year. We also discovered the existence of a very cool brownstone on 115th Street, and examined the results of Barnard’s new online lottery system.

The senior class could not agree on what time to go to 40s on 40, and then got scrambled. Bwog explained how to write any humanities paper in nine steps or less. DSpar left Lincoln Center, leaving us to wonder whose trees she will kill next. Bacchanal happened, and was generally sunnier than we’d expected it to be.

Barnard students voted on a referendum on whether SGA should write a letter of support for Barnard to divest from companies that profit from Israel. Students voted “yes,” but President Beilock announced that the trustees would take no action, before SGA even had the chance to write their letter.

Students got angry elsewhere at Columbia, too. 24/7 Columbia had a sit-in in Lerner to advocate for accessible, in-person healthcare, and gained the support of faculty. Columbia grad students voted to authorize a strike. And the union of healthcare workers isn’t happy with the university, either.

Cynthia Nixon announced her candidacy for governor of New York, and Bwog celebrated with a list of other Barnard alums who we think would be a good fit for the position. Then, we said goodnight to problematic men, and tried to figure out why the John Jay takeaway cups are smaller than the Ferris ones. Students paid way too much for Columbia bucket hats. Bwog did some spring cleaning.

The graduate student union went on strike! Bwog went to the picket line, partially because we wanted to hook up with our TAs. The President of Ireland and Cynthia Nixon both supported the strikers. We couldn’t figure out what Prezbo was doing. The Liberation Coalition took advantage of the spirit of resistance and marched into Butler Library.

The actors of this year’s Varsity Show were too good for their script. Bwog invaded the CC ’22 GroupMe, and found a lot of memes. USenate passed a resolution that would ban relationships between students and professors, graduate students, and… undergrad TAs. The Marching Band, despite a bold announcement, did not march into Butler Library. Also, Tom’s takes cards now.

And that’s all from us for the semester! Bwog has survived finals and moved out, and we’re ready to spend the summer making our lives at least relatively less stressful. The editorial board has switched roles a bit at the end of this semester: Sarah Kinney will continue to serve as Internal Editor, Betsy Ladyzhets is moving back to Managing Editor, and Youngweon Lee will be our new Editor in Chief. Publishers Nik Huth and James Fast will continue funding our snack habits, along with publishers-in-training Andrew Penn and Matt Wayland. See you in the fall, Columbia!

Sunny Columbia via Bwog Staff