The enemy

Bwog’s Clubbin’ feature is back in action to show you some of the most unique, zany, and fascinating clubs Columbia has to offer. Bwog daily editor, and resident Strong Man, Matt Schantz, known for wearing bowling shoes as actual shoes, went renegade clubbin’ and spent a day at Harlem Lanes.

Members of the Columbia Club Bowling team don’t play to win or lose; they just play to bowl. As one member explained, “We have fun more than anything. You study all weekend and then, for an hour, you bowl.”

The club has been defined its laid-back attitude since its inception. Friends Shai Silvenn and David Weltman founded the club two years ago after discovering that among the many esoteric activities represented by Columbia Club sports, bowling was absent. “David bowled in highschool but not too seriously. I had never bowled in an organized fashion,” Shai recalls. Members pay twenty dollars in dues at the beginning of the semester and bowl for free thereafter. The club currently boasts 20 dues paying members, but weekly attendance ranges. Five showed up on the Sunday afternoon I spent with the club.

We walk from the 114th street gates through Harlem as the sun sets, arriving at Harlem Lanes twenty minutes later. A large bowling pin lit from beneath by a pink light adorns the side of our destination. Harlem Lanes on late Sunday afternoon is just as unassuming as you would guess. To our left, a twelve-year-old girl celebrates her birthday. To our right, two parents watch their children bowl. Our shirts glow under the dark lights that illuminate the room. A few laser-lights pulse on the ally-way and neon decals of lightning, bowling balls, and pins wallpaper the wall behind the allies. Read more…

The Columbia club scene is a mixed bag—and no, we don’t mean Campo Cloud 9 Saturdays. We mean, like, student clubs. Bwog’s Clubbin‘ feature is here to introduce you to some of the most eclectic of the group. In this edition, Bwog’s Designated Driver Wannabe Wizard Zach Kagan mounted his Firebolt and caught up with Columbia’s Quidditch team. Copious Harry Potter references and questionable puns ensue. 

Note the broomsticks

You may have noticed the South Lawn is periodically occupied by broomsticks, hoops, Quaffles and Bludgers. Sadly, Harry Potter isn’t real, but Columbia’s club scene presents you with the next best thing: an all-muggle Quidditch team!

Despite the lack of flying brooms and gripping charms, muggle Quidditch is a serious sport. The International Qudditch Association (yeah… it’s a thing) lists 387 competitive teams in the United States alone. It’s taking off at Big Ten schools too, appealing to hardcore athletes and Harry Potter nerds alike. Columbia’s newly formed team, the Columbia Roarcruxes, are trying to bring the growing sport to magical Morningside Heights.

But how does one play Quidditch without proper flying broomsticks and enchanted balls? Thankfully Roarcrux team captains Allyson Gronowitz and Aviva Hamavid took some time to give Bwog the low-down. For authenticity’s sake Quidditch players are required to run with their brooms between their legs at all times, which makes running at the pace which the game demands quite tiring. Just like in the books, Chasers battle for control of balls called Quaffles and use them to try and score in one of their opponent’s three hoops, which act as goals defended by a Keeper. Beaters take on a more offensive role in muggle Quidditch: instead of beating away hostile bowling balls called Bludgers, Beaters attack the opposing team with dodge balls. If you get tagged with the Bludger then it’s a somber broomstick-less walk back to your team’s hoops before you can rejoin the action.

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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 

A mysterious tipster clues us in…

Our men’s club water polo team won the New York State Championship today, huzzah!  On the way, we beat Syracuse and, yes, NYU.

As fourth seed, we beat Army (West Point) 7-4.  This means that Columbia gets to go to club championships in Ohio.

This news comes two years to the day as Bwog last reported the team’s triumphs.

 More photos after the jump.

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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.

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Overheard in EC: 

Rugby Guy #1: We should make posters to get people to come to our game.

Rugby Guy #2: No, you have to get them approved.

Rugby Guy #1: What?  We can’t just make some on our own?

Rugby Guy #2: No.

Rugby Guy #3: What if we made, like, little posters, that we just hand out?

Rugby Guy #2: Nope.  Can’t do it.

Rugby Guy #4: We don’t have to make posters that say, “Come see the rugby team.”  They could just say, “Come see us.”

Rugby Guy #2: No.

Thanks to Addison Anderson for overhearing. 

Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute there, Dianne. Did you seriously just cancel the ice hockey team‘s fall season, and yank half their funding, and put them on probation for two years, over an insensitive poster?

Oh yes she did.

The Club Sports governing board, a group of students and administrators that apparently decides these kind of things, isn’t returning e-mails. The Club Sports office itself punted to the Athletics Communications guy, whom Bwog couldn’t reach for comment. In any case, while Bwog isn’t enamored of the hockey team’s boorish word choice, we can’t help but worry that the cause of cultural sensitivity is more hurt than helped by Murphy’s firepower. Rugby, take heed! The PC police are on alert!

Full press release after the jump. Read more…