For the past four years, the good people at Morton Williams have printed “Welcome Class of 2011″ on the bottom of their receipts. You may have graduated, Class of 2011, but we promise you’ll always be welcomed back.

From senior wisdoms and graduation speeches to inspirational bottle caps and your old man’s sage words, it seems everyone’s trying to offer their counsel. In the spirit of all this unsolicited advice, Bwog leaves you with our own humble tip before we escape for the summer. We like to think of Bwog as a fun-house mirror to the madness, capturing Columbia’s craziness. You’re all such admirably driven people, but we hope you maintain that mirror so you don’t lose track of life’s little delights. All snark aside, get out of your own head once and a while, and peer through the world’s kaleidoscope of perspectives.

And if you’re in for a good cry, recent wise grad, Rajib Mitra, posted a nostalgic Tearjerkers mixtape full of weepy anthems.

So long, folks. It’s been real.

A tipster sent along this photo of what appears to be a pretty big rager in IAB by the Class of 2011:

While it seemed like all fun and games, shortly after, the party (technically not supposed to be there, or whatever) got broken up by a dozen or so Public Safety officers, the fire alarm got pulled, and the NYPD have now been called. In the words of a tipster, “drunken shitshow.”

Apparently, the War on Fun doesn’t stop for degrees. Here’s to ya, 2011!

Update: Baby-faced grads pouring out of IAB. And apparently they didn’t go down without a fight first: during the process, Public Safety was met with some resistance, and partiers began spontaneously singing the national anthem. Bwog is just tickled at this point.

Nostalgic already

We’ve been telling you guys as they’ve been announced, but the final list of all Commencement and Class Day speakers, and the recipients of various other honors, has just been sent out. It does not include Barack Obama. It does include the professors who’ve won the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching, the largest university-wide prize for faculty. This year’s winners are:

• Mary Sheila S. Coronel, Toni Stabile Professor of Professional Practice in Investigative Journalism, (JSchool)
  
• Kenneth B. Frampton, Ware Professor of Architecture, (GSAPP),
• Richard Locke, Professor of professional practice in writing, (SoA)

and two you might actually have had, or at least heard of:

• Richard A. Korb, senior lecturer, (Dept. of Germanic Languages)
  
• Jill S. Shapiro, lecturer, (3EB).

We’ve compiled a lot of useful information about Commencement on the right-hand sidebar, as well as various tools for “aiding” the last of your cramming. We’re almost there guys!

Read the full press release

Look at how we caught your eye with that headline!

Remember that sub-plot in V116 about Dean “Double D” Denburg’s Big Bear/Little Bear initiative? The one where DD matched Barnard first-years and upperclassmen in a binding friendship contract and Jenny couldn’t sneak out and meet Yonatan at 1020? That sucked for both of them, but then (SPOILER ALERT) everything worked out OK in the end.

The 2011 Class Council, is doing something eerily similar in real life, but they didn’t plagiarize anything and we were just making a little nod to current events. The council is launching an initiative: “Senior Pals.” Here’s how it will work: CC 11ers will be paired up with incoming CC 14ers so that our new fresh-friends will have someone to ask questions like “should I buy the grapes at Cafe 212?” (no!) or “EC, Heights, or Campo?” (rap about it!) or “where is the 9 train?” (it doesn’t exist anymore!) What’s in it for you, wizened, tough guy CC senior? Free lunch! There will be a welcome luncheon in the fall for Big Pals and Little Pals.

Pals will be matched according to residence hall (if you lived in John Jay, you’ll be paired with a current JJ resident) and hometown, althouh Udell acknowledged that it will be difficult to get both those matches for all Pals. Udell, who started the initiative, explained its existence to Bwog: “during the campaign I had a lot of people lament the ‘cold’ nature of Columbia, and this seems one way to warm things up a bit.”

Udell and Learned Foote, CCSC President, will send out an email in July to the incoming 14ers saying hi and explaining the project, and they expect that about 500 eager-beaver first-years will sign up to be Little Pals, so that means they need about 500 Big Pals by July. Sign up here, and cross your fingers for those chocolate-chip brownies (and not those grilled veggie wraps) at the Pal Luncheon.

Update, 2 pm: Although it’s a CC initiaitve, SEAS and BC seniors are also eligible/encouraged to become Senior Pals.

Come eat your feelings at Schapiro Lounge tonight at 9 with CCSC 2011. There’s comfort food, including ice cream and French fries! Yum!

That’s right, boys and girls–free cupcakes from the Class of 2011, bespangled in the old red white and blue (because there’s an election day going on or something? Maybe just because it’s Thursday).

Hope they’re red velvet!

If you need some respite from frantic cramming tonight, head over to John Jay lounge from 8-10, where a tipster tells us that the SEAS First Year Class Council will be hosting a “hot chocolate study break.” They’ll also be announcing the launch of their new website, www.seas2011.com.

Oops… hope we didn’t steal your thunder, freshman engineers!

Class councils are usually content with spamming our inboxes and springing for the occasional platter of Dino BBQ. And God bless ‘em for it–free food and the electronically-reinforced illusion of class unity are the two pillars upon which successful student government stand. But the CC 2011 class council is taking this time-honored formula to its next logical–albeit deeply terrifying–stage. Bored with the usual, culinary instruments of age/school-based tribalism, the 2011ers are throwing a “blacklight dance party.” From the email:

“What: The Highlight, a blacklight dance party. (Yes, we will have

blacklights and techno music.)

Where: Lerner Party Space

When: Monday, December 10th, THE LAST DAY OF CLASSES!”

There is a lot to be said here (a blacklight party? Wash your hands, guys!) that it is simply below a publication as dignified as Bwog to say–ecstasy jokes and the like. All we’ll say is off your high horses, freshies: you can’t just give your party a name. The Highlight just strikes us as so, so…so obnoxious, go-to-be-seen, $12 cocktail, West Village club “scene.” So NYU.

Elsewhere in Fair Alma’s orbit: In honor of his work as a pro-Palestinian activist, and, assumedly, in recognition of the fact that you can’t go through four years of college without reading (or at least pretending to have read) Orientalism, San Francisco State University has dedicated a mural to Edward Said, the late University Professor and postcolonial theorist. Although we’re miffed at having to concede the mural round of the “which University loves Edward Said the most” contest, Bwog is still pleased to see that a successful career in Morningside can get you painted on the side of a building 4,000 miles away.

-ARR

Correction: CCSC 2011′s free donuts and coffee are from 9:15-10:15 PM in the Lerner Piano Lounge.  

Learned Foote and Tom Amegadzie of Class Action! The ticket triumphed with 42% of 483 votes. Sean Udell (Representative – iColumbia) was the only candidate to break into Class Action’s slate, garnering the most votes of the representatives with 168 (probably because of the awesome carnival that he proposed in the debates). The only Class Action candidate not to be elected was Noah Baron.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was that despite RealColumbia’s strong showing on Facebook, they seemed unable to turn out their base. Vesal Yazdi and Tania Harsono came in second, 17 points behind Foote and Amegadzie.

The turnout overall was pretty low (even for American standards) and with under 50% turnout, Class Action’s “mandate” is weakened substantially.

In other election news, an anonymous tipster reported the tearing down of a poster and remnants of torn posters in an eleventh hour campaign scuffle between Columbia’s 711 Open 24/7 and Fight for Your Right.

Read more and you can find the complete results as well as the answers to iColumbia’s Sudoku.

Read more…

It’s time to elect this year’s leadership for the class of 2011. Check out the candidates with our facebook primary and debate coverage, and then vote here or swing by Low Plaza any time before 7:00 PM. 

Meanwhile, Bwog would like to reward the ingenuity of iColumbia with a bit of free advertising. Answer will be available near the end of the day.

Presidents and VPs and Reps, oh my!  Last night in Carman Lounge, speeches were spoken, questions posed and time limits were observed…is this democracy at work at Columbia?

When iColumbia Class Representative Sean Udell suggested an epic carnival on campus this coming spring (with both caramel and buttered popcorn!), he inadvertently described the entire Freshman CC debate. Indeed, it was a five ring circus, with the candidates acting as clowns and acrobats, a googly-eyed crowd and CCSC Elections Board member Andrew Ness as ringleader.   Let the games begin!

If anything can be said of the debate in general, all of the parties agreed on essentially every policy initiative, from improved computer labs and laundry rooms to expanded hours for JJ’s and better communication with the student body. However, several parties distinguished themselves by choosing not to discuss their platform in their opening address.  RealColumia, instead of going into details about their “Four Pillars of Reality,” spent their entire three-minute segment complementing each other on their hardworking attitude (in Vesal Yazdi’s case, “a zest for life”).

Columbia’s 711 Open 24/7, on the other hand, built their entire campaign around suggestion boxes.  “I’m not going to do this or do that,” said Ankit “Taj” Gupta, who, instead of discussing his plans for a luau in Uris Pool (that was Class Action) or quoting Spectator articles on satellite gyms (iColumbia), told students how unqualified he was (he also loses his Carman room key multiple times a day) and hopes that his brutal honesty is enough to carry him to victory. Presumably assured of victory, none of 711′s candidates for representative bothered to show up to witness the spectacle. Read more…

It’s now time for Freshies to vote for CCSC 2011 and, armed with only 500 flyers and no money to spend, Facebook was bound to become a primary organizing tool.   Justin Vlasits surveyed the endless domain of the Internet to measure the standings of each ticket with less than a week until elections. Check back for coverage of the 2011 debate in John Jay Lounge on Sunday at 9 PM–we’ll be there with popcorn.

RealColumbia Party

Members: 167

Ticket:

President: Vesal Yazdi

Vice President: Tania Harsono

Rep: Adina Levin

Rep: Alyssa LaMontagne

Rep: Davey Gibian

Outside website: N/A

 

Pros: Extensive (and most likely overly ambitious) platform including practical reforms such as expanding the hours of John Jay dining hall, JJ’s Place and Ferris Booth while also the exceedingly general “ease bureaucratic pressure on students.”  With three international students on the ticket (2 Canadian, 1 Aussie) and a footballin’ theme, they should have a stranglehold on Columbia’s Non Resident Alien voting block.

Cons: Only 6% of Columbia College is international.  Their platform is organized under the “Four Pillars of Reality,” which sound more like a postmodern adaptation of the Five Pillars of Islam than a political party’s central ideas. 

iColumbia Party

Members: 152

Ticket:

President: Anna Ginzberg

Vice President: Amanda Olivo

Rep: Sean Udell

Rep: David Zhu

Rep: Michael Mirochink

Website

Pros: Mad Photoshop skillz (see picture) with the added bonus of partially invisible head.  Indeed, this tech-savvy party’s website has photographic evidence of their knowledge of the Low steps and Alma Mater!   David Zhu can also beatbox while playing flute.

Cons: Apple lawsuit pending. Read more…

Ex-freshmen Rob Stenson and Mike Molina have captured exactly how Bwog was feeling last night at 1:00 AM when, locust-like, a swarm of 2011ers descended upon Ruggles. 

It was terrifying. 

Ready or not, 2011 arrives on campus THIS MONDAY. An anonymous photobwogger chronicles the fits and starts of Columbia before the Deluge. 

COOP and CUE take off Thursday morning, and were recently spotted doing COOP and CUE things on the lawns, which involve shouting “ROAR!” in an ephemeral expression of spirit.