At their December 5th meeting, the Activities Board (ABC) resolved to commit their efforts during Spring semester to a comprehensive reform of the structure and policies of the Board. The most significant immediate impact of this process is that, in order to redirect their efforts toward reform, the Appeal and New Group Recognition processes will be suspended for the Spring semester, tentatively resuming in the Fall. Their resolution is below, and the full proposal can be found here.

A Resolution for Comprehensive ABC Reform
Unanimously passed on December 5, 2012 by the Activities Board at Columbia

• WHEREAS, since its founding in 1998, the Activities Board at Columbia has expanded to represent 160 groups, becoming the largest governing board at Columbia, based on member groups, board size, and net funds controlled; and
• WHEREAS, the policy agenda of the ABC has been deemphasized as the full attention of all twenty members are needed to fulfill their obligations to existing and new groups; and
• WHEREAS, applications for New Group Recognition have consistently increased year after year, showing no signs of slowing down, requiring the redirection of valuable time and manpower; and
• WHEREAS, the ABC recognizes several fundamental structural and procedural problems with the organization of its board, and recognizes the need to refocus efforts and attention on large reforms; and
• WHEREAS, ABC member groups have urged us to reconsider our allocation process, citing that it relies too much on historical precedent, to reconsider the use of the Electronic Approval Form, citing its redundancy, and to reconsider our representative election process, citing that representatives may not always be experienced in the groups they oversee; and
• WHEREAS, many policy initiatives have been proposed over the years, but have fallen to the wayside due to lack of manpower and loss of institutional memory as new boards are elected:

Read on for ABC’s resolutions

Empty...like our lives without SGA reports

Last night’s SGA meeting, the last of the semester, included special guest Joanne Kwong, Barnard’s VP of Communications; a debate over SGA funding of the Activities Board at Columbia; and a heated discussion over appointments to SGA committees. Barnard Boy Peter Sterne reports.

Good Communication: Ms. Kwong explained to the SGA Rep Council that the Barnard Communications Office works hard to shape the school’s image and raise its profile. Among other things, the Communications Office runs Barnard’s website. Some reps complained that the website doesn’t feature as many stories of individual students as it used to, and Ms. Kwong replied that it’s often difficult to find student stories, but that anyone who knew of a Barnard student doing something interesting should email webeditor@barnard.edu. Another rep suggested that instead of sending abrupt e-mails with cryptic subject lines, administrators should communicate with students through video messages.

Know Your ABCs: The president-elect of ABC visited SGA to propose changing the relationship between the two governing boards. Currently, SGA exclusively governs around 30 Barnard student clubs and ABC exclusively governs around 110 student clubs. Another 40 clubs are “dually-recognized” by both ABC and SGA, which means they receive 5/7 of their funding from ABC and 2/7 from Barnard, and can book space at both Columbia and Barnard. Unfortunately, many of the dually-recognized clubs find it difficult to navigate the both ABC’s and SGA’s very different funding and space-request systems. As a result, many of the dually-recognized groups never even touch their Barnard money.

More than that, the distinction between the 40 ABC groups recognized by SGA and the 110 groups not recognized by SGA is apparently arbitrary. Groups are only supposed to be recognized by SGA if they have a certain number of Barnard students, but many groups that meet that requirement aren’t recognized by SGA, and some groups that don’t meet that requirement are recognized by SGA!

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In last night’s town hall, the ABC groups elected new representatives for the Activities Board, which recognizes and funds student groups on campus. Congratulations to the new representatives!

Nothing completes a study guide like a tiny syrup smudge

Despite what you may have heard about Dean Hinkson’s preliminary plans, Bwog received word from Barnard’s McIntosh Activites Council that the date of Midnight Breakfast will not change, after all. As usual, the it will be held the night before finals, Thursday May 3rd.

What McAC had to say:

McAC is happy to announce that after much deliberation the date of Midnight Breakfast will not be changed. As planned and as per tradition, it will be held on Thursday, May 3. We have been working with Dean Hinkson to address many of the particulars of this event, and she has been extremely helpful and supportive as we deliberated the pros and cons of this very important decision. As this is a conversation that directly involves the entire campus, we feel it is important to convey that, with Dean Hinkson’s help, we have taken the community’s opinions and concerns into very serious consideration and believe that, in keeping with tradition, we have collectively reached a decision that best reflects the wishes of the larger Barnard community.

Stacks on stacks via Wikimedia Commons.

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!