The first ever ESC meeting

Sean Zimmermann reports from the first ESC meeting of the semester.

The council began the evening by holding elections for VP Communications. The election was well-contested, especially considering it was held mid-year. The winner, Jim Huang, spoke about his experience on ABC and how his experience developing websites could help in council outreach. He beat Lauren Hsu and current SGA liaison Tanya Shah.

ESC President Levick recently spoke with Dean Pena-Mora, and explained that the Dean is working with the faculty to resolve the issues reported last semester. In the fall, he created the position of Executive Vice-Dean, held by Donald Goldfarb, to act as a intermediary between the faculty and the Dean’s office. Additionally, Pena-Mora told President Levick that the Dean’s office hired an outside consultant to help assess the situation with the faculty, and that they are discussing his recommendations. The Dean came under fire last semester from faculty for failing to address a number of faculty concerns, including addressing overcrowding in classes.

CCSC will no longer be holding mandatory regular meetings, according to CCSC Liaison Rebecca Frauzem. The meetings will be optional for CCSC members, and the council will be holding more town halls instead. President Levick assured council members that CCSC still exists; the idea is that meetings will be more like “office hours” for students.

Intrepid miners via Wikimedia Commons 

Last night, Republican voters in New Hampshire cast their ballots for Mitt Romney as the Republican candidate to oppose Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election; a collective Democratic head-scratching session ensued. Meanwhile, a different crop of votes were cast a little farther down the coast. But these ones—meant to decide a name for the new hawk nesting in Washington Square Park—turned out to be a lot less legitimate. NYT’s City Room reports:

“In case the obvious needed to be said, we asked you to vote only once, please. We used a simple ballot that required no identifying information, because we trusted you.

Well.

Voting was fairly evenly split between the two names in the early going, though after 1,000 votes, Rosie was ahead 638 to 362.

Then Noelle began to, uh, gather momentum.

At one point on Tuesday afternoon, Noelle received 365 votes in a row.

We watched them come in. Every three or four seconds, as if someone were going click, click, click.”

After consulting with Professor Kenneth Katkin of Northern Kentucky University who confirmed that there was most likely ballot stuffing, the NYT has determined that a revote is the best course of action—maybe they’ll learn to take a leaf out of our (very-lengthy, hawk-naming-specific) book. Regardless, we can only hope that NYT readers will get it right this time, or else Romney will have to fire them.

After many weeks of poorly-punned posters and unlikely campaign promises, the ballots are all counted!

2012 Class Rep: Wesley Yip

2013 Class Rep: Alex Jasiulek

2013 President: Ryan Mandelbaum

2015: Crown took this one, with party members Jared Odessky, Erin Bilir, Liam Bland and Katie Angulo elected Prez, VP and Reps, respectively. Loxley Bennett also nabbed the 2015 Class Rep spot.

Bwog extends our warm congratulations to all of the winners and looks forward to the free food you promised us.

ESC sat down for a chat. Sean Zimmermann got to watch.

• Reminder: FRESHMAN ESC ELECTIONS END AT NOON! Vote Here!
• VP—Policy Logan Donovan called for council members to help her work on current CCE improvements. She urged members to “remember their campaign promises.” Accountability!
• CCSC Liaison Linda Sun resigned. The GSSC liaison, Rebecca Frauzen, has resigned from her position, and was elected the new CCSC liaison. The GSSC liaison position is now open, and interested engineering students can email their class council. Assuming their class council doesn’t resign first.
• President Nate Levick reported that the promised EC turnstiles will not be installed until next summer. Sorry seniors. And Barnard.

Die gute alte Zeit via Wikimedia Commons

VP Communications SGA, Sarah Steinmann, tells Bwog the elections period for First Year elections has closed, and the Class of 2015 now has a President and Vice President.

President: Gladys Velez-Caicedo
Vice President: Hannah Rosenwein

Congrats to the new duo!

First year class secretary and treasurer will be appointed based on applications, which can be found here and are due on Friday. First year class representative applications can also be found on that page.

Your nascent student council

Brief headlines from last nights council meetings. Sean Zimmermann reports from the first Engineering Student Council session:

• During the summer, recently elected Academic Affairs Representative Huili Zhu notified President Nate Levick that she would not be able to carry out her duties as the Academic Affairs representative in the coming year. The President invited runner up, Dong-Yoon “Tom” Yang, if he would still be interested in the position, subject to the council’s approval. The vote passed, and Yang was elected.
• Senior Class President Judy Kim reported that, if you were unable to RSVP for the Dean’s Senior Class Engineering reception on Wednesday, you can still pick up your free “gift” (it’s a surprise!) at a later date.

Meanwhile, over at Barnard’s Student Government Association, the following items were addressed:

• Those intending to run for first year elections had to declare today. Voting will open after Wednesday’s candidate forum and run until Monday at noon.
• The Barnard Activities Fair is this Friday, from 12-3. Any clubs or governing boards that would like a table should email the SGA.
• McAC, the Barnard Programming Board, discussed the upcoming Founder’s Day (Oct 11th) and possibility that students will need to swipe in to access the Founder’s Day and Spirit Day BBQs (i.e. no more free food). SGA is trying to find solution to keep these events open to everyone as they traditionally have been.
• Maya Zinkow, Campus Programming Rep, confirmed that SGA reps will be serving breakfast to freshladies in the quad on October 16th.

ESC Initiation Rite (Artist's Rendering)

Sean Zimmermann reports from the final ESC meeting of the year:

ESC tonight held internal elections for the three remaining positions on next year’s council. Afterwards, the seniors said their good-byes before a ceremonial changing of the council took place.

• Tanya Shah was elected ESC’s SGA Liaison. A rising sophomore planning to study BME, she served on first year class council and said she was interested in the position because she would like to give back to the community. She said she would like ESC to try to create a dialogue with Barnard students about women in the sciences, and later explained that a discussion of women in science “would be a good way to facilitate a positive discussion between Barnard students and Columbia students who are both interested in science.” She ran against Michael Fraynd.
• William Cybriwsky, current ESC Sustainability Liaison, was re-elected to the position. Though Cybriwsky admitted there had been a number of difficulties during the first year the position was added to council, like the failed book swap program, he spoke about his recent accomplishments on ESC, such as working on improvements to the water fountains in Mudd, and spoke about his work with current President Elizondo about sustainability issues at council events. Specifically, he cited his success in reducing the amount of paper used at council events. He ran unopposed. Read more…

The seven lucky Gods of Japan represent the seven proposed recommendations

CCSC gazed long into the abyss, Brian Wagner gazed back into them.

• Melissa Im, the president of Columbia’s chapter of the Ivy Council gave a presentation on why CCSC’s Bylaws should allow CCSC to play a large role in electing Ivy Council’s leadership. Ivy Council is an organization that gathers together members from all the Ivy League schools to meet and discuss school policies, big issues for collegiate students, and other fun things. If this amendment is put into place, a liaison on Ivy Council will be responsible for reporting directly to ESC and CCSC, giving the Councils input into how the other Ivies perceive Columbia. The Council tabled voting on this, but a quick straw poll indicated that most members would be in favor.
• The real focus of the meeting was the Resolution on Elections Board Rules & Regulations. The Resolution contained seven different recommendations, and the Council dealt with them on an individual basis. The Council does not have the power to force the Election Board to do anything; the following are nothing more than recommendations that EB will consider during its yearly review of election rules and regulations. A full breakdown of resolutions after the jump. Read more…

election thing down. Lots has happened with regards to the 2014 ESC Council these past few days, and we provide a brief summary: “>

Kathy Sun, SEAS '14

SEAS ’14 just can’t seem to get this election thing down. Lots has happened with regards to the 2014 ESC Council these past few days, and we provide a brief summary:

• While Kathy Sun did beat out Akshay Shah for President of SEAS ’14 last Wednesday, she did not actually win the popular vote. In reality, Shah garnered more votes but did not win the election because his party, DemocraSEAS, violated certain election rules on flyering, and due to these violations, votes were taken away from the entire party, resulting in the Sun victory.
• However, according to Spec, “ESC is not allowed to take votes away from the entire party for the actions of one person,” and that happened to be the case this time. In a meeting last Friday between the two parties and the ESC Elections Board, a member of DemocraSEAS “honorably” stepped forward and claimed sole responsibility for the violations (full email from the Secretary of Elections below). Thus, even though his party still violated election laws, votes were restored to Shah, and the Presidential election was tied with a revote scheduled for this week. Shah owned up to the violations and told Spec that they were unintentional and the product of “miscommunication.”
• But wait! Before the revote could happen, Sun dropped out of the race, meaning Shah is now President of ESC 2014 by default. Sun told Spec that she thinks it is “ridiculous” that “there would be so much cheating” surrounding the election of a public servant and that she withdrew for “ideological reasons.” Hey, if this happened to us, we’d probably lose faith in the system as well (and give talks about the environment just to get back into the spotlight every once in a while).

More ESC than you could fit into a soap opera below

We’ve already seen the election results for CCSC, ESC, and SGA. Now, here are the election results for the General Studies Student Council!

Student Body President: Jacqueline Thong – 54.3% of votes

VP-Policy: Benjamin Paladino – 77.1% of votes

VP-Finance: Joshua Lewin-Jacus – 44.2% of votes

VP-Communications: Mahogany Wright – 43.0% of votes

VP-Student Events: Frank Castellucci – 36.6% of votes

University Senator: Jose Robledo – 56.5% of votes

The percentages reflect the total votes cast in the election, not votes cast in each individual race.

GSSC also tells us that the following positions will be filled through an application and interview process before the end of the semester: Senior Class President, Senior Class Vice President, Social Chair, Chief Policy Representative, Chief Communications Representative, Chief Student Events Representative, Chief Finance Representative, Four Council Coordinator, and Alumni Affairs Representative. All other positions will be filled at the beginning of the Fall 2011 semester.

Congratulations to all the winners!

Not a Constitution

Sean Zimmerman reports on last night’s ESC meeting.

• During their final constitutional review, the Engineering Student Council voted 17-7-3 (Yes-No-Abstain) to hold general E-Board elections next year. With this change, all positions on ESC, with the exception of Sustainability Liason and Director of Technology will be decided by a general election. VP Policy Heidi Ahmed explained that the Sustainability and Technology positions will still be elected internally as “they’re very specific to how the council works, rather than what they’re doing for students.”
• President Chris Elizondo was the first President in favor of Open Elections. He outlined his position during the debate: “Last time, I was at the front of the charge to save Internal Elections since if it’s not broken, why fix it. I don’t think it’s a problem of the quality in the room, it’s the barrier between the students and council. And I think that’s why we’re running class council elections that are unopposed. I think if we reduce that barrier to entry, I do believe in a trickle down effect of increased participation. Overall in the end, what we’ll gain from the student body is more respect, and better treatment from the media.”
• VP Intergroup Narayan Subramanian said toward the end of debate: “What is our role as ESC? As a student council, if you’re sitting outside this room, do you think this is fair? We have become a very incestuous body. That makes us jaded. I know a lot of people are saying that this can become a popularity contest, but it’s something inherent to our council to go out and meet with our constituents.” Read more…

Democracy happened, and Barnard drew a blank. Jessica Blank, that is. Jessica Blank is your new SGA president! Bwog decrees she shall be called PrezBla. The strong and beautiful women governing Barnard next year are listed below. Congrats to all candidates and winners.

President SGA Jessica Blank
Vice President SGA Rachel Ferrari
Vice President Student Activities Gila Schwarzschild
Vice President For Communications Sarah Steinmann
Vice President Of Finance Camila Daniels
Board of Trustees Jr. Rep to BOT Mica Spicka
Community Affairs Rep. Deborah Robertson
Academic Affairs Rep. Malvina Kefalas
Rep. for Student Services Sarah Stillman
Rep. to GSSC Ilana Breitman

Class results after the jump!

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

Friends, meet your candidates for the upcoming SGA elections! We notice that many of the positions are going uncontested. Ah, democracy.

SGA President: Gabrielle Ferrara, Mitzi Steiner, Jessica Blank

VPSG: Rachel Ferrari

Jr. Rep to the BOT: Liscare Castro, Mica Spicka, Amy Duncan

VP Communications: Sarah Steinmann

VP Finance: Camila Daniels

VP Student Activities: Liza Kostreva, Gila Schwarzschild

Rep. for Academic Affairs: Malvina Helene Kefalas And even more candidates

Planned EC Gate Design

Sean Zimmermann reports from last night’s ESC proceedings:

The University has purchased a device that will allow electronic guest sign-in for dorms. Ideally, it will be installed in EC before the end of the semester. This comes as part of a larger overhaul of EC’s entrance. The current plan is to remove the grating now in place, leaving space for a much larger entrance with three “Lerner-style turn-styles” to allow students to swipe into the building. The guard desk will be moved past the grate.

Election Updates:

• Though Frank Yin, current GSSC Liaison, dropped out of the election last week, he resumed his bid for the VP Intergroup position last night. Yin explained that, though he did not have enough signatures to run, he was inspired by newly elected President Nate Levick’s speech, and successfully requested an extension to get more signatures. Yin was subsequently elected VP Intergroup.
• Sheila Misheni, SEAS ‘14, was elected VP Policy Student Life.
• Audry Padgett, current sophomore class representative, explained that
  she is “the best candidate, even if [she] is the only candidate.”
  Padgett explained that VP Internal doesn’t have many outlined
  responsibilities, and therefore she would not be opposed to focusing
  on communications. She explained that she “wants to push [ESC]
  outreach next year … wants students to know who we are and wants to
  have an impact in their day to day lives.”
  

Artist’s Rendering courtesy of Wikimedia Commons