If you’re one of those Columbians still sitting around in your ninja costume and roller blades, whining about how you can’t get a summer internship (or girlfriend, see: possession of ninja costume and rollerblades), whine no longer! Just head over to northeast campus and find the grad student who’s waiting patiently, tapping his ninja star against the thigh of his own costume. He will welcome you, as long as you have “experience handling fruit.” Note: That’s a euphemism. Ze’ev Gebler spotted the following cry for help in SIPA—coincidentally, it contains the exact same text as our Match.com profile:

Because nothing screams "legitimacy" like Magic Marker on a sheet of paper towel. Hung with re-used tape.

The University Senate has unanimously recommended that PrezBo and The Trustees (playing at Music Hall of Williamsburg next week) consider creating an interim Graduate Student Center. And that incredibly sillily-named committee has ideas!

They argued that Columbia’s peer institutions have space dedicated to its graduate students and that such a space would increase a sense of community among grad students. Other reasons cited include a common space for grad students on the Morningside and Medical Center campuses, as well as new funds to build the center, and space to build it in.

The committee has suggested six possible locations for the Student Center: 538 W. 114th St, space within Earl Hall, former Psych library (Schermerhorn), former Chem library (Chandler), former Bio. Sciences library (Fairchild), former Physics library (Pupin).

On the ashes of Columbia’s natural sciences resources, a place for your TAs to talk about Kant and ask each other on dates to 1020 may blossom.

Here’s the full recommendation from the University Senate:
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In a recent email sent out to SEAS students, the University Senate Elections Commission asked them to “reconsider how SEAS students are elected to the Senate.” This move was prompted by graduate engineering students voicing concerns that they felt underrepresented. Indeed, the survey asks only one question: Should the SEAS student body be separated into undergraduate and graduate voting groups that would each elect one student to the University Senate?

Rajat Roy, SEAS ’10 and 3-year University Senator, sent an email out tonight expressing his opposition to this proposed change. He argues that by mandating one graduate and one undergraduate Senator, SEAS would be divided and its representation in the University as a whole would be made weaker.

The original email and Rajat’s response can be found after the jump.

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This is basically ESC. Photo via senate.gov

Sean Zimmermann reports from last night’s hot and heavy ESC meeting.

Study Days madness never, ever ends: ESC passed the Academic Calendar Proposal that would begin school before Labor Day. Jim Applegate, Education Committee Chair, commented to Whitney Green that he based his proposal to remove the election day break on the Facebook petition, Petition to Change Winter Break Calendar Facebook Group, which focused on the late end of finals and the study days problem. When Applegate explained that faculty want to be with their families during the final week of summer, Green countered that students want to be with their families during fall break. According to Green, the talks were “one-sided,” and her meeting with Applegate and Sue Yang became a “fairly heated discussion,” as the education committee has not “respected the voices of students.” Read more…

Though the Engineering Student Council began the process of Constitutional Review yesterday evening, it was preceded by a normal meeting. Grad Student dramz, Gender Neutral Housing, and so on. Sean Zimmermann reports, with help from Heidi Ahmed.

Timur Dykhne and Arseniy Kukanov of Engineering Graduate Student Council proposed splitting the two Engineering senate seats – currently, as both schools are under the same Dean, they are considered to be the same school, and therefore graduate students compete with undergraduates for senate seats. Undergraduate Senator Rajat Roy believes the initiative “is a personal affront to Cherie and me,” and explained that both he and Cherie have attended all EGSC meetings that did not conflict with Senate. Members of the council also explained that since there are more engineering grad students than undergrads, if they are unable to motivate their constancy to back them, then they should not be rewarded for their students’ inaction. In a vote held during last night’s meeting, the council was in favor of leaving the senate seats as they are.

President Green reported that the reason the administration postponed Gender-Neutral Housing Initiative was that the administration wants to know how the proposal “will affect other [non-LGBTQ] communities” She also commented that the administration wants to “develop more of a concrete information base for visitors and prospies and parents.”

The council voted that whoever is elected for VP policy during this coming E-Board election will assume the “de-facto” role of VP policy for the rest of the semester until they are officially given the title next year. This would fill the open position, and also enable to the person to develop experience before receive the title officially next semester.

Forget checking Facebook on your way to Econ; a Bwog tipster discovered that the row of shiny new Mac monitors in IAB’s sixth floor lobby is reserved for SIPA network users only.  SIPA may be indulging its students less than it appears, however; Bwog learned that slow hard drives running Windows lie beneath their stylish exteriors.  

More photos of what you’re missing after the jump.

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A School of the Arts third year writing student named David Harrington is receiving some attention today from the New York Daily News in response to his famous internet invention, the Sarah Palin Baby-Name Generator. The Daily News loved their new Palin names so much that certain reporters even used them as bylines.

Bwog played around with this thing by entering in several of Columbia’s most recognizable names. Here’s what happened:

• Lee Bollinger: Shaver Razorback Palin
• Bruce Robbins: Steak Leather Palin
• James Franco: Moose Roadster Palin
• Roaree Lion: Snooker Hinge Palin
• Austin Quigley: Recoil Mush Palin
• Gayatri Spivak: Plop Hero Palin
  

Plus, it’s not just random: entering in the same name twice will result in the same Palin name both times. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Bwog’s actually quite partial to our Palin name: Ladel Torque Palin.

It’s not Prangstgrup, but it’ll do. Watch those chem grad students run!

Julia Kite emails us with the following tip:

“The Journalism School’s graduation speaker will be Ben Bradlee…yes, THE Ben Bradlee who was editor of the Washington Post during the Watergate Scandal and one of three people who knew the identity of Deep Throat, à la All the President’s Men.”

According to a recent Gawker post, J-School Dean of Students Sree Sreenivasan e-mailed students with the news yesterday (in which he, interestingly enough, sourced Wikipedia for Bradlee’s bio — hey, even professional journalists refer to it every now and then).

For those still upset about their own Class Day speakers, know that there may still be hope for graduate school.

- MIP 

Classes have begun, and you’re eager to know what your instructors have in store beyond that cute introductory slide lecture. CULPA expert Owain Evans is here to help, writing Bwog to point out what he thought was a suspicious evaluation. “Was this review written by the grad student himself?” he wonders. Bwog can’t say, but this excerpt was at least somewhat of an outlier among reviews that were vaguely positive but tended to include such tips as “if you put time into this class you can do well but expect to fail the midterms” and “he thinks it is amusing when the majority of the class fails an exam”.

John Baldwin

Mathematics

displaying all reviews (5) | search directory of classes | review prof

Calculus I

27 December 2006

John is a young research mathematician who can check caller ID while

summing Reimann subintervals. His star quality arouses nubile

tittering in the first few rows, then narrowly offset with strategic

downplay. John plants errors in his boardwork to weed out the

booksmarts, so if you’re thinking of getting some in-class doodling

done, think again! Test questions are mildly sadistic, though John

will provide ample crawl opps for those who care enough to botch the

exams. Moreover, since John’s not a generalist, he won’t offer answers

to questions you can figure on your own. But if you have inquiries

which demonstrate genuine intellectual curiosity, John will be

generous with his time and brain power- count on that! Office hours

are busy and often run seminar style, so get in on it early or you

just might miss him.

Workload: Don’t think you’re off the hook as far as homework goes!

Easier problems are culled from the actual assignments, which do have

collaborative appeal…so split up the sets in your study group and

share the answers! Unless you’re feeling rigorous, well, then there’s

just no getting around hard work.

Oh those chemists! Oh those grad students who aspire to be chemists!

Stephanie Quan writes in with an account of the chem department’s winter show, a Varsity Show-type extravaganza featuring off-key musical tributes to favorite professors sung by second-year grad students with department secretaries on keyboard.

But in the esteemed words of R. Kelly, “after the party show, it’s the after party.” Stephanie says the fun really started with five hours of chemically induced revelry in the lounge. The ethanol flowed from twelve standard kegs and a massive punch dispenser, photographed here next to Stephanie’s friend Terrence.

Just remember guys, “don’t drink and derive.”

In which Bwog Staffer Brendan Ballou tries desperately to find something to talk about with Kira Kalina von Ostenfeld — a German countess who graduated from Georgetown at age 19 to work for the FBI, grew up in Peru, learned six languages, and started her own art company. She’s also a fifth-year grad student in the history department focusing on middle-ages Spain.

Why are grad students sad?

It’s part of the culture of graduate school. And this is something that’s happened for a very, very long time – it’s nothing new. It’s part of the intensity of the intellectual process we go through – it’s suffering. We’re supposed to be doing this for some higher call and we will enlighten the world. I mean we have a pretty sweet deal – the lucky ones of us get paid to be here. I think you’re being unrealistic if you come to graduate school and think it’s going to be cushy. It’s difficult, so the lucky few of us who are allowed to be part of this should appreciate it for what it’s for.

So you went to college at 16

Yeah.

So how did that happen?

Well, my parents are a little bit older, so when I came along my mother had already had kids, and so she considered me a little adult. I don’t think it was a negative thing at all – I very much appreciated it actually. I was never treated as a child – I was always treated as an adult and pushed accordingly when it came to academics. And so my parents were very lenient in terms of everything else that they did, so their one requirement was that, ‘if get A’s and keep A’s in everything you do you have free rein – you can go out with your friends, you can party, you can go to concerts, whatever, you can have a boyfriend.’

And so you had a social life in high school?

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Apparently, Columbia has a Masters program in Real Estate, and the entire class took up some serious real estate on the steps a few minutes ago for a group picture, prompting grumbles from loungers who were asked to relocate. Bwog overheard that at least part of the mob was headed to CBGB after the photo op. Party hardy, future tycoons!

A poster of the Graduate Students Employee Union in Mudd claims “According to the Living Wage Project at Penn State University, the minimum living wage for a single person’s very basic budget in New York City is $21,272.”

A visit to the poster’s cited Living Wage Calculator reveals the living wage estimate for a single adult in New York City, NY to be $16,050 before taxes.

The Bwog hopes graduate students put a little more care into grading our papers (and writing their theses).