Several student leaders, all student government representatives, have put together a petition for administrative leaders to take action on last Sunday’s hate crime and its fallout, including the controversy over certain CU football players’ Twitter accounts.

You can access the petition here. Its creators are encouraging everyone to share their vote and possible solutions. The writers of the petition “urge the administration to seriously investigate and evaluate what factors led to the events and postings that have disturbed the Columbia community this week,” and ultimately call for a commission to be formed by members of administration to assess the “systems of accountability” within the CU football team and Athletics at large:

An independent commission should be formed as soon as possible by the offices of the President and Provost to investigate whether or not systems of accountability for situations like this exist in the University, and how these systems, if they do exist, failed in the case of the Athletics Department and the football program.

According to the petition, the commission should issue a public report of their findings by July 31. The petition makes a particular point to address the inconsistent administrative response to past controversies, and the overall lack of transparency within both the Athletics department and administration in general.

The co-writers are: David Fine, CC ‘13, Outgoing Chair, Student Governing Board; Karishma Habbu, CC ‘13, Outgoing President, Columbia College Student Council; JungHee Hyun, BC ’13, Outgoing President, Student Government Association; Saketh Kalathur, CC ‘13, Outgoing President, Activities Board at Columbia; Tim Qin, SEAS ‘13, Outgoing President, Engineering Student Council; and Jennifer Wisdom, GS ‘13 – Outgoing President, General Studies Student Council.

Update, 5/10, 12pm: The authors of the petition have written in to explain that they changed the wording of the petition to better explain their stance.  Their explanations after the jump.

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(Former) Dean Dorothy Denburg

Dorothy Denburg, BC ’70 and the former Dean of Barnard College who currently serves as “Vice President for College Relations“, will be retiring next year. She has overseen student and alumni activities at Barnard since 1993.

Later today, DSpar will send out a touching email announcing Dean Denburg’s retirement, which Bwog has obtained. Here it is:

I am writing to let you know that Dorothy Denburg will be stepping down from her role as Vice President for College Relations at the end of the academic year, capping off an astonishing four decades of service to the College, not counting her stellar years as a Barnard student. There is simply no one like Dorothy, and simply no way to quantify what her influence, energy, and amazing spirit have meant to us all.

Most recently, in her three years as Vice President for College Relations, Dorothy has found new and compelling ways to connect our alumnae to the College, and our students to our alumnae. Her outreach to alumnae has extended well beyond the gates—from Paris and London to Seattle and St. Louis, and beyond. In many of these areas, she was the first senior administrator to visit, and her efforts have helped double the number of alumnae clubs to a total of 52, both stateside and abroad. In addition, she organized faculty lectures in cities throughout the world, and secured grant money to increase programming for 350 alumnae and 40 gap-year students in Israel.

When charged with building a program of alumnae education, Dorothy’s response has been masterful and extensive. Because she has a profound understanding of our alumnae, not to mention an insider’s perspective, she has been able to develop courses and curricula that have truly captured their attention. And they have shown up in droves for Conversations in Contemporary Art and Revisiting the Classics I and II, for series such as Barnard on the Hudson and Barnard@work, and for the College’s first-ever online course, Mary Gordon’s The Modern Novel, to be followed next year by another of Mary’s signature courses, Middle Fictions. They have also had more opportunities than ever to return the favor by means of expanded mentorship programs that pair students with alumnae mentors.

Keep reading about how amazing she is

The Barnard housing crisis just got worse: we now know that Barnard students who went on leave signed contracts guaranteeing housing—only to return and find those guarantees gone.

Bwog has obtained evidence indicating that Barnard violated returning students’ housing contracts earlier this year by changing the terms, and revoking their promised guaranteed housing. Our tipster, who took a leave of absence for Spring 2012, sent us a copy of the contract she signed last November. Here’s the key passage:

Cancelling my academic year housing due to a withdrawal from the College means that I will be guaranteed housing upon readmission as long as I follow all housing application deadlines

Yesterday, we examined Dean Avis Hinkson’s crafty language—though she implied that students returning from leave had never been guaranteed housing, a 2009 contract we found proved otherwise. Soon after we posted, she admitted that “[t]he policy was changed last February.”

Our tipster’s contract, which she signed last November, promised her guaranteed housing upon return. Three months after she signed the contract, Barnard changed the rules. Instead of getting guaranteed housing, returning students would be placed on a Non-Guaranteed Waitlist. As far as we can tell, Barnard never even announced the change; the returning students still believed they would be guaranteed housing when they returned, as their contracts stated.

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A townhall much like this one.

CCSC is one busy bee today, and will be hosting a town hall-style meeting with one of Columbia’s powerbrokers, Vice-president of Campus Affairs Scott Wright in Lerner’s Satow Room, 8 pm ’til 9 pm. According to the event’s Facebook page, Wright’s purview includes departments as diverse as dining, housing, mail, and transportation. You probably have never had a problem with any of those functions, but if you have, tonight’s the night to make it known!

Rotes Rathaus via Wikimedia Commons.

Our dear university, hit hard by the recession, has been searching for ways to cut expenses.

With assistance from consulting firm McKinsey, they’ve been weighing their options, some of which so upset Michele Moody-Adams that (have you heard?) she resigned as Dean of the Columbia College. While these recommendations have not been made public—and perhaps shall never see the light of day—the University has enacted other policies aimed at saving money, including cutting back on payments for professors’ health insurance and their children’s college tuition.

Back in April,  the Task Force on Fringe Benefits (advised by McKinsey, which compared Columbia’s benefits program to those of 16 other universities) released a 38-page report. The report recommended sharply curtailing so-called “fringe benefits” for “Officers of the University” (which mostly means faculty, researchers, and librarians).

These are the specific recommendations the report made:

• Only pay 80% (instead of 100%) of tuition costs for professors’ children who attend Columbia, and 40% (instead of 50%) of tuition cost for professors’ children who attend other schools. This one is self-explanatory, but extremely costly: professors would have to pay over $40,000 more for their kids to attend Columbia for four years! …Which is less than a “normal” parent pays for one year. But still.
• Only allow faculty and staff members who are enrolled in a degree program to take one Columbia course (instead of 15 course credits) per semester for free.
• Replace the generous POS 90 and POS 100 health insurance plans with a High-Deductible Health Plan and Health Savings Account. In English: In exchange for a monthly fee, the POS 90 and POS 100 plans cover 90% or 100% of all your health expenses once you’ve spent around $200 (known as the deductible) on health expenses each year. It’s a pretty sweet deal, so sweet that these plans are actually considered “Cadillac plans” and subject to high taxes under Obamacare. The HDHP, on the other hand, has lower monthly fees but a much higher deductible. The idea is that you put the money you would have spent on the monthly payments into a tax-free “health savings account,” instead of paying high monthly fees and relying on the University to pay for most of your medical expenses.
• Stop giving contributions to retired professors and instead encourage them to open retirement accounts when they’re young. The University is basically taking the same strategy they took with health insurance: transition from a system in which the University makes payments to employees to one in which the University only provides accounts for professors to fill with a portion of their annual salary. (more…)

Recent developments surrounding Moodygate have left all parties stunned and confused, but everyone can be certain of one thing: Columbia University is an organizationally complex machine, perhaps too much so. Investigations into the origins and circumstances of Moody-Adams’ resignation have revealed existing and historical rifts between deans, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and central administration. In order to better understand the current situation, there needs to be a clearer understanding of the internal structure of Columbia University.

Bwog has obtained an unofficial organizational chart (298K, PDF) from an alumni tipster that breaks down Columbia’s administration and hierarchical structure, from the Trustees and PrezBo all the way down to deans and their assistants. It’s quite a beast to look at, but it illustrates just how massive and intricate the University truly is. Our tipster notes that parts of the chart are outdated (it dates from early 2010), and due to the complex structure of the administration, perhaps oversimplified or drawn with fuzzy lines. It’s also incomplete, because certain areas of Alumni Affairs and Development are very difficult to figure out.

To help digest this information, we’ve taken this org chart and distilled it to only include personnel relevant to the resignation of Moody-Adams. We’ve also taken care to update positions so it more accurately represents the current administrators. For those we show having direct reports, all direct reports are shown—although for presentation purposes, some personnel may have been condensed into a single box. The original org chart more accurately portrays relative ranking amongst officials by preserving strict levels, but ours more clearly demonstrates connections between key personnel and direct report relationships. Look at ours below or view the .png file directly.

People that are bolded in our org chart represent those that have been in the news lately. The chart’s arrows are pointed in the direction of seniority, i.e. there is an arrow pointing from any given position to their superior. It’s clear that Nick Dirks and Robert Kasdin have enormous responsibilities.

And in case you were wondering, the relationship between Coatsworth and Dirks is accurate to the best of our knowledge. The Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences (FAS) reports to the Provost, and the Dean of SIPA reports to the Dean of FAS; however, because Coatsworth is serving as Interim Provost while maintaining his position as the Dean of SIPA, Coatsworth currently has Dirks as a direct report while still reporting to him. A behemoth indeed.

Well-informed alumni sources have also conjectured about MiMoo’s replacement. Basically it could go one of two ways. Either a “caretaker,” a harmless, experienced professor with administrative experience—possibly a former dean— will fill the position until an appropriate long-term replacement is found, or else one of the younger, relatively unknown but tenured professors with strong links to the College will be chosen for the permanent deanship.

Executive Vice President and Dean of Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Nicholas Dirks

MiMoo’ email revealed animosities plaguing the administration. Only when you understand the university’s current structure can you begin to comprehend the implications of centralization and her departure.

First, a bit of history. The massive administrative construct, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, traces all the way back to the late nineteenth century. In 1880, Graduate Studies were established as separate from the College. Columbia University then developed as a web of various specialized schools and faculties. But administrators craved a more unified organizational structure, and a series of  committees in the 1970s and early 80s, the Woodring, Rice and Breslow Committees, concluded that, in the interests of economy and efficiency, some serious centralization was in order. Finally in 1982, President Sovern created the powerful position of Vice President of Arts and Sciences and appointed Donald Hood of Frontiers fame.

Though, as VP of Arts and Sciences, Hood presided over faculty members at the College, GS, GSAS, SIPA, and Arts, the respective faculties remained distinct and difficult to coordinate. So in 1991, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences was created as a sixth faculty that would subsume the five. Technically, the separate faculties were never formally disbanded, but each faculty is basically powerless on its own— for example, an individual faculty has no power to appoint tenure. To further centralize the power of the VP, President Rupp conferred the added title, Dean of Faculty of Arts and Sciences with all its attendant responsibilities. Fast forward 20 years: the Faculty of Arts and Sciences consists of 29 departments in social sciences, humanities and natural sciences, plus 6 schools: CC, GS, GSAS, Arts, SIPA, Continuing Education. Wilfred Chan summarized his research into the history of Arts and Sciences in a nifty infographic over at IvyGate.

All of this administrative restructuring has greased the gears of bureacracy while squandering the independence of the College. One alumnus calls this trend the “Harvardizing of Columbia;” PrezBo has created a mega-institution of disparate schools. As we mentioned, it was the clash between Quigly and former VP Cohen that led to the beloved Dean’s forced resignation in 1997. Quigley reportedly sought money for undergrad facilities, while Cohen was more focused on larger University budget balancing. Conflict ensued, and Quigley got the axe. Now the deans and faculty report to Nicholas Dirks, the VP for Arts and Sciences and Dean of Faculty of Arts and Sciences since 2004.

More muckraking after the jump

John Coatsworth

President Bollinger just sent out an email announcing that John Henry Coatsworth, current Dean of SIPA and owner of the name to end all names, will assume the duties of University Provost starting July 1. With the recent loss of Claude Steele to Stanford, Coatsworth will serve as Interim Provost until PrezBo and “a small advisory group” formally appoint a new Provost. During his time, Coatsworth (with his long list of publications on Wikipedia) will simultaneously serve as Dean of SIPA and University Provost.

And so we wonder: will he be able to satisfy two institutions at the same time?

Full email after the jump

Columbia goes global... like this globe...

Does anyone know what the global centers do? In the larger sense, aside from hosting a program here and an event here, what is their sinister purpose? Yesterday administrators, students and scholars converged on Low Library to explain what it means in a conference entitled “Columbia Goes Global: The Next 50 Years.” Semi-pro Low Rat and Administration Fanboy Mark Hay was on the scene.

When President Lee C. Bollinger first came to Columbia, he made clear his opinion that no serious university could survive in the 21^st century without becoming a global university. As far as sweeping statements go, that one made sense to everyone who heard it. Unfortunately, said Vice President for Global Centers Kenneth Prewitt, Prezbo didn’t exactly ever say what that meant. And as Columbia prepares to open global centers in Nairobi, Kenya and Santiago, Chile, over the next year, giving the university a presence in every major region of the globe, Prewitt thinks its quite time to start having a serious conversation about what it means for the university to go global.

The cozy hall behind the Rotunda of Low Library may seem an odd place to start a serious conversation with lasting influences for the fate of a major academic institution. But start there it did. At least the minds assembled, Barnard President Debora Spar, Dean of the School of General Studies Peter Awn, and Dean of Columbia College Michelle Moody-Adams, were up to the challenge. A conference such as this holds the potential to be a preening and primping session, replete with sound bites and photo ops, to show off Columbia’s new toys and puff our image. But the assembled brain trust showed a refreshing (and relatable—finally!) skepticism, coupled with genuine interest and insight into global education.

Read more after the jump!

See you there! Via Wikimedia

A lot of study abroad applications are due this Friday, October 1, and if you happen to be a member of the Class of 2012 eager to leave Morningside next semester, your days have been filled with a few extra doses of Existential Crisis and lots of paperwork. Here are a few tips to make your life a little easier, now that we’re about 48 hours away from the deadline.

• Getting your transcript is E-Z! Instead of triple-emailing your advisor, go to 210 Kent, fill out the transcript request form (you’ll find it to your left, outside the door), pass it to an employee at the desk. She’ll print your transcript (as many copies as you need!) and put them in a fancy Columbia Office of the Registrar envelope.

• Passport pictures are expensive. Bwog spent 60 miserable dollars at Duane Reade today (since our abroad program inexplicably requires 12 photos) before realizing there was a better way that involved much less lite-music listening. A set of two passport photos are $8.99 at Ivy League Stationers, but $9.99 at Duane Reade at $10.99 at Village Copier. Plus, the Ivy League guys are some of the friendliest in town.

• Remember not to buy your stamps at the Package Center. Kill two birds with one administrative stone by picking up your stamps at the post office on 112th between Broadway and Amsterdam, right next to Book Culture, where you can also overnight your application so that it gets to London or Kathmandu or Moscow on time.

• Need clearance to study abroad, like, now? Study Abroad King, Dean Carpenter’s office  hours are from 1:30 to 4 in 105 Carman, by the Carman computer lab. And if you need to rush it to the Office of Global Programs, don’t be fooled! It’s not in Lewisohn anymore, it’s on 606 Kent.

• If you can’t get your shit together on time, find your program and plead with them between 12:30-3:30 in Roone this Friday at the Study Abroad fair.

Et voila! No Morningside February for you, friend!

Following Columbia administration’s decision to postpone the implementation of a gender neutral housing policy that was expected to be in place for the 2010-2011 academic year, the students who introduced the plan – EAAH President Avi Edelman (CC ’11) GendeRevolution President Miranda Elliot (CC ’10), 2011 VP Sean Udell (CC ’11) and 2010 VP for Policy Sarah Weiss (CC ’10) – have been circulating a petition to address the administration’s concern that there may not be enough student support for the new housing policy.

Avi Edelman answers a few of Bwog’s questions.

Why do you think the administration decided against implementing the policy, or even a pilot program for this year’s selection process? What reasons did they give for the decision (other than their worries that not enough students were in favor of it)?

A lot of the reasons given for the delay were logistical–updating the housing application, educating the student body about the changes, and getting feedback from students about the policy were all mentioned. That’s extremely frustrating and disappointing, because the proposal was submitted according to a timeline established in consultation with administrators. Those of us who worked on the proposal (a broad coalition that included CCSC, ESC, Everyone Allied Against Homophobia, GendeRevolution, and the Columbia Queer Alliance) also made it very clear that we were eager to assist the administration in the logical work necessary to make this happen in time for this year’s room selection. Many administrators that we have worked with have been fantastic, and I am confident that the policy will eventually become reality; this is just a classic case of bureaucratic foot-dragging.

More answers after the jump!

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Sean Zimmermann reports from last night’s meeting.

Perhaps inspired by Nixon’s success, the Senate, according to Senator Rajat Roy, plans to keep all committee records secret for fifty years. The only records that would remain public would be plenary meeting information, and all information from the budget, IT, external affairs, Manhattanville, and other committees would become private. Under the proposal, senators will be unable to report to councils what is going on in their committees. Rajat, though very much against the proposal, explained that the Senate hoped members would speak openly in committee meetings. The move is being backed by College Senator Monica Quaintance.

Additionally, Rajat spoke about the Columbia Video Network (CVN) recording – many engineering classes are videotaped for CVN, a graduate distance learning program described by Rajat as one of the more lucrative program for SEAS. Graduate students are charged $1000/point for lectures, and are able to replay the video of a lecture an unlimited number of times. Rajat proposes making the videos available to all students enrolled in the recorded class.

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Columbia administration looks a bit spartan to start off the year.

Fully stocked fridge?  Enjoy cooking with Spec.

Use your KimMoney while you still have the chance.

Been away recently?  Rent control, it’s still a problem.

Turn and face the changes.

After the umpteenth hour of lawn manicuring and tent set-up, 2:30 today saw the culmination of parent-related move-in events, Convocation. There were flags, smiles, “Pomp and Circumstance”-lite music piped-in over the loudspeaker, and quasi-poignant speeches from admins all around.

Flubs: Colombo called assembled matriculants “students and daughters,” Quigley was interrupted by a crash from the third tent, Navratil sounded unrealistically eager when he mentioned Gateway, and PrezBo killed the mood when he mentioned the challenges of environmental destruction and cultural conflict.

But no matter! The banners are unfurled, the skies are blue, and OL sessions are beginning. Huzzah, huzzah

Double-sided, super-sticky, extra-thick red tape

Our own high-profile university admin search

Those who take time off gain perspective, face problems

A glut of Israeli-Palestinian conflict pieces:

More Left, Left, Right, More Right