After the meeting, CCSC gazed into the distance contemplatively.

CCSC deliberates. Brian Wagner reports.

• The council once again discussed a streamlined, multi-council uniform cosponsorship committee after hearing presentations from the treasurers of the three other student councils, which have all passed the measure. The proposed committee would cut a lot of red tape, saving the sanity of councils and applicants alike.
• CCSC proposed a revised resolution. The Council asked for a two provisions: 1) Each council may send as many representatives to the meetings as it wishes, though each school would only have three or four voting delegates. 2) If a council chose not to fund a certain event, they would be reimbursed for the amount doled out at the end of the semester. As one of the presenters put it, under the new resolution the money would not be in “one stew pot . . . but four different pots on one stove.” Here’s to culinary excellence! The four treasurers will vote on the revised resolution by email today, and the results will be posted online ASAP. Read more…

From the largest interdisciplinary fortress to the tiniest of urban meadows, no news is irrelevant. It’s about the bigger picture.

A broken chain has been spotted on Low Plaza, trespass while you can!

There is construction going on outside Nussbaum & Wu, so there is no outside seating (perhaps irrelevant in these current climes)

Butler Cafe was awarded an A grade in a sanitary inspection. Bwog abounds in Blue Java Pride.

There are men up in the trees, stringing lights for Christmas. If you’re lucky you’ll catch a test run.

Best of the Rest:

Entrance to the North-West Science building has been revealed. It is surprisingly roomy north-west-a-ways.

Pinnacle is undergoing transformation into Uni Café… it will probably still be kind of gross.

Is it boring? It is newsworthy! Boring Sides to tips@bwog.com

Grades are in early, because The College Sustainability Report Card is out! From their press release:

Released today, the publication is the only independent evaluation of sustainability in campus operations and endowment practices. Assessing each institution in nine categories, ranging from Climate Change & Energy to Green Building to Investment Priorities, the Report Card provides detailed school profiles and grades for 322 colleges and universities, representing all 50 U.S. states and eight Canadian provinces.

Since the first edition four years ago, Report Card surveys show dramatic increases on 52 green indicators. For example, the percentages of schools that now have the following programs are:
64% – Commitment to carbon emissions reduction (23% in 2006)
70% – Campus farm or garden (9% in 2006)
75% – Trayless dining (0% in 2006)
79% – Green building policy (22% in 2006)
95% – Sustainability committee (40% in 2006)

Cool stuff. Columbia earned a B+, and Barnard earned a C+. Check out your school’s grades and then yell at your council members!

Another blog has discovered our friend Sarah Dooley.  Yes, her character is a lot like Michael Scott, but so much cuter!

A Columbia grad student played in that intertubes-inspired concert at Carnegie Hall: “I haven’t hardly played at all.”

Drought in Africa: yes, it could happen, and it’s happened before: “startling.”

Ever wonder what happens in that underground lab by Avery?  It’s the behavioral labs for the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions.  A reporter discloses the horrors within.

Studying at a university that crushes your self-esteem, remind yourself now and again that you have skills.  It’ll raise your grades by one third of a grade.  Hopefully.  Maybe.

The J-School, with PrezBo’s impetus, is leading the way in adapting its curriculum to the post-print world.  In love with newsprint?  First, learn Photoshop.

The world’s largest collection of pop music is now available for your perusal at a library near you.  Hopefully, most of it is pre-Britney.

News flash: Ivy League tuition is expensive.  So we’ve signed up for a government supplement fund to help GI’s complete their education here.

Hey there! Merry Christmas to you. Many of you, like many of us, were expecting a special gift by today: fall semester’s grades. And many of you, like many of us, are without said grades.

So, we’ve begun to compile a list of professors who have yet to upload your final marks. Use the comment thread to shame your professor, and we’ll add him/her to our list. With a little Christmas magic — and some Google-able dishonor — we might all be able to get our grades by New Year’s. 

(Grades are actually due two weeks after the last class — making some seminar grades overdue — or two weeks after the last final.)

The Damned:

Billinge, Simon, Thermodynamics, Statistical Mechanics, and Kinetic Theory

Blake, Casey, US Intellectual History 1865-

Bollinger, Lee “PrezBo”, Freedom of Speech & Press

Brandt, Kim, Intro to Japanese Civ

Cole, Brian, Accelerated Physics

Read more…

A reminder to all considering passing/failing/or getting a D:

The new system will allow you to “uncover”a grade. This means that if you receive a C- or higher, you will be allowed to keep that grade on your transcript instead of the “pass.” (Ds and “fails” will remain as such).

Make sure to register to take a class pass/D/fail by the end of the week!

However, SEAS students can’t opt for pass/fail until they fulfill 128 credits, while BC students aren’t given the “uncover” option. BC is allowed to pass/fail their “Core” requirements, though.

Happy uncovering!

Wednesday, sustainability day was going to be “dedicated to encouraging and promoting Columbia’s recent environmental stewardship initiatives and pressuring them to do even more,” complete with such accoutrements as a mountain of trash, a PrezBo speech, and giant displays. Unfortunately, it rained. Sustainability day will be rescheduled!

Well, the rain didn’t stop Columbia’s sustainability report card from coming in. Despite its best efforts, Columbia failed to improve, staying at the “B” grade it received last year. It was, however, easily in the top third of the 200 schools graded by the sustainable endowments institute. Most of the other Ivies did better, with Dartmouth and Harvard coming in as “Overall Sustainability Leaders” and Yale racking up a “Campus Sustainability Leader”‘ recognition. Only Princeton, with a B-, did worse. To be fair, New York City seems like a tough place to be sustainable: after Columbia, the next best Big Apple school was NYU with a C+. Schools were graded in a variety of categories, including food, transportation, and investments. Food and Recycling was the easiest class, with 29% of the students making an A. Endowment Transparency, on the other hand, seemed to be a tough cookie, as only 4% of schools got the “A” grade.

Bwog yawns itself querulously out of hibernation for the first post of the year 2007. There’s this one bothersome blank spot on our SSOL grades report between our C+ in Principles of Economics and our B- in Music Hum. We want it filled.

Call it activist Bwogging, but here’s a list of the tardiest professors culled from the bwgossip alias and beyond, for all the world to see.

David Rothman, Medicine and Western Civilization

Jill Shapiro, Human Species: Our Place in Nature

Thomas Bernstein, Chinese Politics

Jeremy Waldron, Terrorism and Civil Liberties (Spring 2006. Yes.)

Greg Smithsimon, Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration in Urban America

Sonia Pereira, Barnard Economics Professor

James Trask, Urban Studies Junior Colloquium

Michael Seidel, Joyce

Elizabeth Irwin, Thucydides

Carol Rovane, Methods and Problems of Philosophical Thought

Eric Foner, US in the Era of Civil War and Reconstruction

Micheal Shaevitz, Physics 1200

Deborah Mowshowitz, Intro to Molecular Biology

…and one tipster tells us all of the TAs from Physics Lab are tardy…

Get on it, folks! Those grad school and internship apps can’t wait!

Keep us updated — let us know which of your profs belongs on the Wall of Shame, and which should be crossed off as grades trickle in.

ADDENDUM: Bwog has been informed that the phone grade system will, allegedly, have grades available earlier than those posted on SSOL. For those willing to endure touchtone agony (and the awkwardness of hearing your grade robotically read aloud), the number to call is x4-7373. The daring can put this on speakerphone and invite their friends over for a good drinking game…