Spotted by Chief of Ruggles Snuggles Andrew Kisch

Bwog received numerous tips today that a film crew from ABC7 was around campus getting footage and conducting interviews about the recent attempted robberies of iPhones. No footage has been posted to the local affiliate’s website yet, but we’re hoping that when it does, we can get sandwich man‘s take on all this.

Update, 3:00 am: The segment is now online. Check it out below:

food trucks. Bwog knows it can be difficult to keep track, so to ease your bureaucracy-induced agitation is Bwog’s CCSC correspondent Brian Wagner, here to untangle the web that is Columbia’s undergraduate student government.”>

Alexander Hamilton, an alum, founded SGA.

Bright young things: in the next few weeks you will be introduced to a dizzying array of organizations, acronyms, slang, and food trucks. Bwog knows it can be difficult to keep track, so to ease your bureaucracy-induced agitation is Bwog’s CCSC correspondent Brian Wagner, here to untangle the web that is Columbia’s undergraduate student government.

The Senate and The Councils

Columbia University Senate

The Senate is Columbia’s überlegislature, and a testament to the fact that we were the first University with a formal bureaucracy. The unwieldy body represents “faculty, students, and other constituencies.” The plenary meetings of the Senate take place roughly once per month throughout the academic year.

Hyperbole aside, here are the cold hard facts: The Senate has 108 voting seats, with 63 reserved for faculty, 24 for students, 6 for officers of research, 2 each for administrative staff, librarians, and alumni, and 9 for senior administrators including the president, who chairs monthly plenaries.

Action on the Senate floor may not seem as immediate as that in meetings of your Student Council (or Government Association—hey Barnard!), but these heirs of Webster and Calhoun get to weigh in on some of the Columbia community’s most pressing issues: from the lively and sometimes rowdy return of ROTC to the much-discussed-outside-Butler smoking ban, the budget-monitoring resolution on fringe benefits for university officers, and “rules governing political demonstrations.”

Read more…

At last night’s town hall meeting, student groups elected the ABC Board for the coming year. They elected a new exec board last week. Congratulations to the winners! Speaking of the winners, here they are:

• Renuka Agarwal: CC 2012
• Elizabeth Angeles: CC 2013
• Ryan Cho: CC 2013
• Max Hartman: GS 2013
• Saketh Kalathur: CC 2013
• Nikhil Krishnan: CC 2014
• Nick Miyares: CC 2012
• Tim Qin: SEAS 2013
• Julian Richardson: CC 2014
• ChiChi Udochi: CC 2013
• Ben Xue: CC 2014
• Rui Yu: CC 2014
• Kevin Zhai: CC 2012

Yesterday, the new ABC executive board was elected! The ABC funds (non-political, -spiritual, or -activist) student groups on campus. It’s the opposite of SGB. Winners are below. Congratulations! Start groveling for money folks.

• President: Daniel Brown, CC ’12
• VP: John O’Shea, CC ’13
• Treasurer: Chloe Ruan, SEAS ’13
• Secretary: Christine Byun, CC ’14

Despite complaints from CU-EMS about their current space (too small, too noisy, too co-ed), ABC voted not to recommend CU-EMS’ move from its current location in the basement of Carman to Broadway 103. The complete email from ABC follows:

At its meeting on November 17, 2010, ABC voted not to recommend CU-EMS’ move
from its current location in the basement of Carman to Broadway 103. Seven
board members supported the move while nine board members opposed it.

The majority of the board believes that the student groups represented by
ABC would not benefit from the move. Broadway 103, currently open to student
group reservation, is roughly twice the size of the Carman space currently
occupied by CU-EMS, which would be put to student group use if CU-EMS were
to move. To give such a large space to one group at the exclusion of others
would be a disservice to the 153 groups recognized by ABC. Our groups have
long complained of the lack of meeting and storage space, and other
proposals, such as the Student Sustainability Center, should be seriously
considered before a decision is made. Alternative uses of 103 have not been
explored, and the spaces within 103 have not been open for student group
reservation long enough to justify the argument that they will not be used
efficiently by student groups. Read more…

food carts. Bwog knows it can be difficult to keep track, so here to ease your bureaucracy-induced agita is Bwog’s CCSC correspondent to untangle the web that is Columbia’s undergraduate student government.”>

Alexander Hamilton, an alum, founded SGA.

Hey 2014, in the next few weeks you will be introduced to a dizzying array of organizations, acronyms, slang, and food carts. Bwog knows it can be difficult to keep track, so here to ease your bureaucracy-induced agita is Bwog’s CCSC correspondent to untangle the web that is Columbia’s undergraduate student government.

F@CU – Funding at Columbia University

Like Zach Galifianakis, it has the power of the purse. See F@CU’s most recent funding decisions here.

The purpose of F@CU, according to itself, “is to facilitate, support, and enrich student development in the form of student activities of campus.” But if that doesn’t tell you much, you’re not alone. Essentially, F@CU is responsible for distributing the Student Activities Fee. F@CU is composed of the incoming and outgoing Presidents and Treasurers of each undergraduate Student Council, for a total of 16 members. These titans of student activity funding meet during reading week at the end of each spring semester to hear out the proposals of the governing boards (ABC, CI, CSGB, IGC, and SGB) and make their decisions. F@CU has an uncharacteristically (for Columbia) straightforward website, and they explicitly tell us why they made the decisions they did.

The money allocated by F@CU trickles down through the governing boards to fund everything from Bacchanal, to the Varsity Show, to the CSC Lunar Gala. And those are just a few events, F@CU funds also provide for the day-to-day needs of hundreds of student organizations.

F@CU can also make special allocations to groups other than the governing boards. For instance, in the past F@CU has allocated money to WKCR, the radio station housed in Lerner.
Read more…

Wikimedia Commons has its limits, kay?

Today is a big day! F@CU has just released their 2010-2011 allocations for your governing boards. Let’s talk big numbers and little percentages, shall we?

Activities Board: $393,459 granted, 7.4% increase from last year, 4.4% cut from requested allocation, which was $411,568

Club Sports Governing Board: $206,200 granted, 17% increase from last year’s allocation, $213,800 originally requested

Community Impact: $84,765, 23.6% increase from last year’s allocation, $86,440 requested

Inter-Greek Council: $9,680.56 granted, 47% decrease from last year’s allocation, 63% decrease from original request, which was $26,164. This bummer-rama is partly due to Barnard’s relative lack of involvement in Greek life the fact that Barnard students do not pay student life fees to the IGC. Part of F@CU’s reasoning:

Following much deliberation, the committee has decided to allocate a total of $9,680.56 to the Inter-Greek Council for the 2010-2011 academic school year. This represents a 47.0% decrease from the previous year’s allocation and a 63.2% decrease from the original allocation request. The decrease above is very significant and the committee would like to stress that this is not a reflection on the performance of the IGC. The cut is mostly due to the cut in funding from CCSC, ESC, and GSSC proportional to the percentage of Barnard students in the IGC. Given that Barnard students are not paying student life fees toward the IGC (as Barnard has not recognized the IGC and does not participate in its funding), CCSC, ESC and GSSC have decided only to fund their own constituencies and thus reduce IGC’s allocation to reflect that decision. Please refer to SGA’s supplemental letter for more details on their intended $1000 gift to IGC which is not part of F@CU.

Student Governing Board: $208,156 granted, 18% increase from last year’s allocation, $292,014 requested

Take a look at last year’s numbers here (all governing boards got a baseline 15.08% cut for 09-10) and check F@CU’s site for published letters to each governing board explaining the allocations. May you be spared from math until first semester rains Calc II down on you!

Results are in! Stay tuned for elections results from CCSC, ESC and SGA today and tomorrow.

President:
Beezly Kiernan

Vice President:
Eric Rosenberg

Treasurer:
Brittany Ward

Secretary:
Justin Kim

Update: Beezly Kiernan, who is currently running for the position of VP of Policy in the CCSC’s exec board elections, intends to resign from his position as president of ABC if his Naked Party ticket wins.

Every year, the various governing boards show off cool Power Points and generally grovel before the Funding at Columbia University committee (known by the almost-scandalous abbreviation F@CU) for a nice cut of your student life fees. This year’s numbers were just released, and the various allocations are as follows:

• Activities Board at Columbia: $366,303.61 ($413,607.22 $473,527.31 requested, $307,516.00 allocated last year)
• Student Governing Board: $184,109.54 ($217,636 requested, $189,620.62 allocated last year)
• Club Sports Governing Board: $176,821.57 ($221,580.00 requested, $198,661.25 allocated last year)
• Inter-Greek Council: $18,254.20 ($34,970 requested, $23,565 allocated last year)
• Community Impact: $68,571.09 $68,511.09 ($104,055.00 requested, $79,917.15 allocated last year)

Sources also tell Bwog that there was an across-the-board cut of 15.08% from F@CU’s original recommended allocations. Letters justifying the various allocations should be on F@CU’s website soon are now on F@CU’s website.

UPDATE: Bwog has received a second tip, this time from CCSC VP for Funding Nuriel Moghavem, correcting two inaccuracies in the numbers we originally received. Most notably, ABC’s request was about $60,000 higher, meaning that they were not given more than they requested before the across-the-board cut. As for that 15.08% cut, Moghavem explains, “we added up all our recommended allocations for the governing boards — $958,582.36, looked at the amount of money that we (CCSC, ESC, GSSC, SGA) were able to contribute — $814,000.00, and cut all GBs evenly at 15.08%.”

- JCD 

The activities fair may be over, but you’ve still got a while to find your niche in Columbia’s extracurricular scene. To help you sift through the alphabet soup, our series of club crib sheets continues with groups that hand out money and groups that may eventually make lots of money.

Governing Boards and Councils (a.k.a. The Man)

Activities Board at Columbia (ABC) – This oversight organization funds publications, cultural groups, competition groups–basically everything SGB doesn’t pay for. Every club competes to have its friends on the board of representatives in hopes of upping their allocations.

Engineering Student Council (ESC) - ESC may be elected undemocratically—the executive board, which composes a much larger percentage of the total student body than any of the other councils, selects the president–but they do come up with the most wonderful web applications.

Student Government Association – Barnard College’s student council, this year headed by Sarah Besnoff. SGA mostly stays on the west side of Broadway, but frequently cosponsors events with the other undergraduate councils.

General Studies Student Council (GSSC) – Now with a cute owl logo and a website that’s at least helpful and up to date, GSSC is one of the more constituency-conscious councils out there. Bwog can only hope current president Brody Berg will be as entertaining as ex-leader Nico Cunningham. Read more…

Well, they moved quickly this time. As we wrote about before, the announcement of a joint appearance by Obama and McCain on campus next Thursday took student government and group leaders completely by surprise.

Just before midnight, though, the presidents of the student councils, club governing boards, and Panhellenic councils have sent an email to President Lee Bollinger, as well as fellow administrators interim Dean of Student Affairs Kevin Shollenberger, Executive Vice President for Student Services Jeffrey Scott, and Housing & Dining Vice President Scott Wright.

The email asks for two accomodations: “a fair share of the tickets made available are apportioned to undergraduates” and “arrangements, similar to those made for the Ahmadinejad visit, should be made for all students, including but not limited to the installation of a large screen on South Lawn.” In other words, “make sure everyone gets an equal chance at tickets, and give us another jumbotron.” The full letter will be printed in Thursday’s Spectator, but you can save yourself from waiting outside a residence hall until noon and just read it below the fold.

Read more…

ABC has just released a spreadsheet of 2008-2009′s club allocations. (As you might remember, ABC released their 2007-2008 allocations/debt spreadsheet in February, prompting SGB to do the same and creating a minor brouhaha in the process.) So onto the compare-contrast:

The most noticeable budgetary increase is that of Bacchanal and Special Events, which received just $18,000 in initial allocations for 2007-2008 but this year was awarded an envious $75,739. (Here’s hoping — er, demanding? — tickets for next Spring Concert will be free.) Most groups, including the Black Students Organization ($6,229), the Blue and White ($12,075), Helvidius ($5,500) Clefthangers ($1,115), and The Fed ($4,075), among others, received similar allocations to those of last year.

The Society of Automotive Engineers’ allocation shrank from $8,669 to $7,997 — maybe ABC wasn’t as impressed with their homemade car as Bwog was? Philo saw an increase of about $300, up to $1,875 from last year’s $1,510. Varsity Show’s budget remains a mystery shrouded in an enigma, as do those of heritage months.

For your own investigative purposes, last year’s allocations are here and this year’s are here. (Though keep in mind, many of the clubs are recognized by both ABC and SGA and receive dual funding.) And for all the ABC news and updates you’d ever want, visit their new-ish blog.

On Monday night, the Student Governing Board voted to elect their new board, as well as to determine new group recognition and to derecognize inactive groups. Their new board is as follows:

Chair: Arjun Kapoor,  CC’09, Amnesty International

Vice-Chair: Jacob Taber, GS-JTS’09, College Democrats & Hillel

Treasurer: Devora Aharon, CC’10, Hillel

Secretary: Jim Downie, CC’10, College Democrats (and Bwog staffer!)

Representatives-at-Large:

Nishi Dedania, SEAS’09, Hindu Students Organization

Charles Dwyer, CC’09, CU International Relations Forum

Sana Khalid, CC’11, MSA, AHIMSA and USINPAC

Aaron Krieger, CC’10, Hillel Executive Board, Gayava, Columbia Queer Alliance

Ali Shafei, CC’10, MSA

Eugenio Suarez, CC’11, Cuban American National Foundation

Elissa Verrilli, BC’11, SEEJ

New groups and groups-no-longer are after the jump—and in keeping with the theme du jour of objectivism, the ill-fated Ayn Rand Discussion Group is one of the latter.

Read more…

Like many of you, Bwog was curious and excited upon learning that ABC (unlike last year) had released their 2007-2008 budget and student group allocations. But what of the Student Governing Board, (the ABC of political and religious groups, among others)? According to Jon Siegel, a chair of SGB, the SGB has been in talks with various groups for about a year in attempts to publicize their budgets. This year, SGB will be releasing their full budget and all of their allocations.

“The only reason we haven’t published ours yet is because a member of a student council asked us not to release ours for another week or so so that they would be able to release theirs without appearing to have been pressured into it by us,” Siegel said. 

Because SGB serves mostly religious and political student groups, clubs and events, the release of individual allocations to groups is a very sensitive and charged issue. Bwog will be publishing SGB’s budget as it is released, check back for updates.  

- JNW

Newsworthy day for belly dancers and linguists, the Fall 2007 New Group Recognition process over at the Activities Board at Columbia comes to a close. There were five groups to make the cut: Columbia Ballet Collective, Columbia Bellydancing Troupe, Columbia Linguistic Society, Organization of Latin American Students, and Onyx. 

ABC also released their 2007-2008 budget, which includes the allocations and debts of each ABC-sponsored club, event, and publication. It’s available for close reading here.  More after the jump. 

Read more…