cute skirt on the right

Bwog is pleased to announce the results of the GS Student Council election for 2013-2014. Although the list of winners we received this morning featured many more percentages than Bwog is used to dealing with on Friday mornings, from what we understood, the runner-up in the four VP races automatically becomes the chief representative for that category. The full list of results appears below:

Student Body President

Hannah Germond

Vice President of Policy

Edgardo Martinez

Vice President of Finance

Austin Taylor

Vice President of Communications

Cole Cademartori

Vice President of Student Events

Jason Pettigrew (more…)

Tonight, GSSC passed a resolution and SGB issued a statement calling on the administration to “Save the Arts Initiative.” SGA, ESC, and CCSC have already passed similar resolutions (and ABC issued a similar statement), while over 1,200 students and alums have individually signed a similar petition. All of the resolutions, statements, and petitions call on the administration to take the following 5 steps to save the Initiative:

1. A move out of the School of the Arts to an administrative home that reflects CUArts’ mission of serving all students, faculty, and staff.
2. Increased funding from the Office of the President, and the restoration of the budget that CUArts prospered under for years.
3. The appointment, with student input, of a new director whose sole job is Director of the Arts Initiative, who will have their full time to devote to the continued success of the program.
4. The creation of an advisory committee that institutionalizes the student, faculty, and staff input that was formerly the hallmark of the program.
5. Reinstatement of the generous subsidy for the Columbia Ballet Collaborative to perform in Miller Theater, which gives them the ability to use the one space on campus they can perform in.

To recap: The Arts Initiative used to be located in the Office of the President, until it was moved into the School of the Arts in 2009. Similarly, it used to have its own director, until director Gregory Mosher director left and was replaced in 2011 by Melissa Smey, who doubles as the director of Miller Theatre. At the time (and since), the administration said that these changes would not hurt the Initiative, but the Initiative has suffered in the last few years. One consequence: the Columbia Ballet Collaborative will soon be unable to afford performing in Miller Theatre.

Now these six student councils and governing boards (which combined represent every student and student group at Columbia and Barnard) are calling on the administration to restore the Initiative as an independent and well-funded program separate from the School of the Arts and Miller Theatre.

Here are the full resolutions passed by the student councils, statements from SGB and ABC, and the press release from Will Hughes, the CCSC VP of Policy who has led the fight to save the Arts Initiative.

As part of the ongoing efforts to alleviate the impact of moving the GS Class Day a day earlier, the other three undergraduate student councils have pledged some money ($2,012: what a random amount!) toward funding a reception for GS seniors on May 14th, the originally planned date of the ceremony. Solidarity! According to sources, the administration has not offered any additional money in support of the event, which GSSC is currently attempting to fund independently.

You may recall that quite a bit has taken place since the change was announced rather suddenly.

• Indignation spreads across Facebook and Bwog comments like wildfire. Peter Awn sends an eloquent apology and promises to set up a travel fund jointly with PrezBo and Barnard to ensure that all families can make the ceremony.
• GSSC releases the results of a survey that demonstrate that 62% of seniors expect to have at least one guest missing as a result of the switch.
• The undergraduate councils call for an apology from the university, as well as funding for a smaller event on Class Day’s original date. This elicits a typical noncommittal statement from the administration.
• Grassroots solutions (uhh) take root. A special couch-surfing app hopes to alleviate the travel crunch for affected families.

Note this well: the deadline to apply for money from Dean Awn’s fund is tomorrow, April 30th, at noon. If you’d like to take advantage, send an e-mail to gsclassday@columbia.edu with the following information, taken from an e-mail sent by Awn on April 24th.

• Full name and CUID (that thing with the “C” and lots of numbers)
• A written letter of appeal that describes why this change will either prevent your family from attending GS Class Day or create an excessive financial hardship.
• Number of people affected and relation to graduate.
• Documentation of original expenses and new expenses projected or incurred (airline or train change-fees) will eventually have to be provided. If documentation is already available, please forward a copy with your request.

E-mail from the councils after the jump.

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In a statement responding to Monday’s announcement that GS Class Day would be moved a day forward, prominent campus figures joined members of GSSC, CCSC, ESC, SGA and the Senate to call for a formal apology from President Bollinger. The statement praises the announced Travel Fund, but demands an extra ceremony on the original day in a different location. You can find the full letter and names of the student signees after the jump.

Feel free to add your signature in the comments.

Update 7:55 pm: You can also sign this change.org petition.

Standing Together with the School of General Studies

April 25, 2012

The sudden and unexpected rescheduling of the School of General Studies Class Day has placed undue financial and emotional burdens upon the students of General Studies and their families. We are heartened by the creation of a GS Class Day Travel Fund and hope that the administration will work to accommodate as many people as possible so that they are able to take part in the celebration of the amazing accomplishments of the graduating seniors in GS.

We are disappointed with the manner in which this change has been communicated to the GS student body. President Bollinger’s e-mail did not acknowledge the enormous emotional and financial burdens the move of GS Class Day places on the families and friends of GS seniors.  We request a formal apology to those students and their families that have been affected by the move. We also wish to see the creation of a smaller event during the originally scheduled Class Day ceremony, in an alternative location, to accommodate those individuals who cannot change their plans or wish to attend in addition to Class Day. This event should be paid for in full by the Columbia and Barnard administrations as a gesture of goodwill and understanding to recognize both the achievements of the graduating GS seniors and the support and sacrifices made by them and their loved ones.

Full statement…

For a little extra context regarding the whole GS Class Day rescheduling debacle (which could have ended worse), check out GSSC’s survey, embedded below. They surveyed about half the graduating class, as well as a handful of CC, SEAS, and BC students.

Highlights: 62% of graduating seniors have at least one guest unable to come, the average family will be out $500, and almost half of those surveyed agreed with Dean Awn’s decision not to start at 5:30 am.

python: the way of the future

Sean Zimmermann reports from last night’s ESC meeting.

• A intro programming course, ENGI E1006, will be added next fall. The class will replace COMS W1004 as the fundamental intro programming course for 11 of the 16 engineering departments, starting next fall. Unlike W1004, the class will be taught in the python programming language instead of Java. There will also be a new data structures class in python that will replace COMS W3134 as a follow-up to the intro programming class.
• The council debated potential changes to the SGO, including increasing the size of the computer lab and loading the machines with more editing software.
• VP Finance Frank Yin confirmed representatives from GSSC told ESC, CCSC, and SGA that they were unable to co-sponsor further events due to lack of funds. Yin said that their exact words were that they were “tapped out.” GSSC has told Bwog that they are not out of money, but that ESC had “graciously offered to increase their in-ratio co-sponsorship to cover the remaining requests for the year in co-sponsorships.” Yin explained that ESC did not offer to cover the missing funds, but rather the JCCC (CCSC, SGA, and ESC) agreed to fill the void left by GSSC so that no events would be adversely affected.

You wish you had an all-seeing eye on your chest

The results from the General Studies Student Council elections have just come in; unlike your breakfast this morning, some balance has been achieved between indulgence and foresight:

Student Body President:

Jennifer Wisdom 51%
Scott Bacon 35%
Eugene Dinescu 9%

Vice President of Policy:

Nikki Morgan 50%
Alexandra Leighton 26%

Chief Policy Representative

Alexandra Leighton, per instant run off from the Vice President of Policy race.

University Senator:

Justin Nathaniel Carter 22%
Adam Gentle 19%
Phineas Lunger 16%
Amna Pervez 14%
Nathalie Monina Nino 12%
*Percentages reflect the total votes cast in the election, not votes cast in each individual race.

Spring appointments for the 2012-2013 GSSC will be conducted for the following positions: Vice President of Finance, Vice President of Events, Vice President of Communications, Chief Finance Representative, Chief Events Representative, Chief Communications Representative, Senior Class President, Senior Class Vice President, International Students Representative, Veteran Students Representative, JTS Students Representative, Working Students Representative, Alumni Affairs Representative, Four Council Representative, and Social Chair. All other positions will be filled at the beginning of Fall 2012. More information about the Spring application and interview process will be made available in the coming week.

“Wisdom” via Wikimedia Commons

nasty bugs, messing up the elections

Sean Zimmermann reports from last night’s ESC meeting.

ESC representatives explained that there was a glitch in the CCSC election website that allowed students to vote for any class council, instead of limiting them to voting only on their own year’s candidates. ESC says that the bug did not affect ESC elections, and they suspect the problem has already been fixed.

VP Policy Logan Donovan said the Committee on Undergraduate Education is considering adding additional classes that can count toward non-technical electives. Under current rules, there are classes that cannot count for either a technical or non-technical elective. If changed, this rule would take effect for all classes, starting next fall. It is unclear if this change would count toward classes already taken.

ESC voted that it would split GS’ co-sponsorship contributions with the other councils, provided that sanctions are taken against General Studies Student Council. The GSSC ran out of funds, and is therefore no longer able to fund cosponsorships. GS senator Jose Robledo, who attended the ESC meeting, expressed his support for imposing sanctions against GSSC; he told ESC that he believes action should be taken against his council, as mistakes were made earlier in the year.

Printers may be coming to Carlton Arms. Scott Wright, VP of Campus Services, told the council that he is working to have a printer installed in the much-maligned dorm by the end of the semester.

Misunderstanding of technical terms via Wikimedia Commons

Update, 4/5/12: GSSC sent us a press release clarifying that they didn’t run out of money:

Press Release | General Studies Student Council | 4/5/12

There was a misinterpretation of the JCCC and ESC meetings information relayed via bwog this past Tuesday regarding our funding of F@CU and joint co-sponsorships. The GSSC wishes to bring clarification to the matter.

To be clear, GSSC is NOT out of money. We aim to spend GS student life fees with the utmost care. GSSC has spent $4,300.00 for additional co-sponsorships this year. We set aside funds at the beginning of the year based on last year’s JCCC contributions. Our contribution to F@CU to support student clubs and organizations this year was $95,712.87.

ESC graciously offered to increase their in-ratio co-sponsorship to cover the remaining requests for the year in co-sponsorships. Bwog paints it as the allusion that the ESC was coerced into such a decision. This is not the case.

We remain fully committed to working with the other undergraduate councils and wholeheartedly support the student life at Columbia University. We hope that by acknowledging this issue, we can open up a dialoge on how to better include GS students in events that request co-sponsorships in the future.

Please send your questions or comments about this issue to gssccommunications@columbia.edu.

Alexander Hamilton, an alum, founded SGA.

Bright young things: in the next few weeks you will be introduced to a dizzying array of organizations, acronyms, slang, and food trucks. Bwog knows it can be difficult to keep track, so to ease your bureaucracy-induced agitation is Bwog’s CCSC correspondent Brian Wagner, here to untangle the web that is Columbia’s undergraduate student government.

The Senate and The Councils

Columbia University Senate

The Senate is Columbia’s überlegislature, and a testament to the fact that we were the first University with a formal bureaucracy. The unwieldy body represents “faculty, students, and other constituencies.” The plenary meetings of the Senate take place roughly once per month throughout the academic year.

Hyperbole aside, here are the cold hard facts: The Senate has 108 voting seats, with 63 reserved for faculty, 24 for students, 6 for officers of research, 2 each for administrative staff, librarians, and alumni, and 9 for senior administrators including the president, who chairs monthly plenaries.

Action on the Senate floor may not seem as immediate as that in meetings of your Student Council (or Government Association—hey Barnard!), but these heirs of Webster and Calhoun get to weigh in on some of the Columbia community’s most pressing issues: from the lively and sometimes rowdy return of ROTC to the much-discussed-outside-Butler smoking ban, the budget-monitoring resolution on fringe benefits for university officers, and “rules governing political demonstrations.”

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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!

Alexander Hamilton, an alum, founded SGA.

Hey 2014, in the next few weeks you will be introduced to a dizzying array of organizations, acronyms, slang, and food carts. Bwog knows it can be difficult to keep track, so here to ease your bureaucracy-induced agita is Bwog’s CCSC correspondent to untangle the web that is Columbia’s undergraduate student government.

F@CU – Funding at Columbia University

Like Zach Galifianakis, it has the power of the purse. See F@CU’s most recent funding decisions here.

The purpose of F@CU, according to itself, “is to facilitate, support, and enrich student development in the form of student activities of campus.” But if that doesn’t tell you much, you’re not alone. Essentially, F@CU is responsible for distributing the Student Activities Fee. F@CU is composed of the incoming and outgoing Presidents and Treasurers of each undergraduate Student Council, for a total of 16 members. These titans of student activity funding meet during reading week at the end of each spring semester to hear out the proposals of the governing boards (ABC, CI, CSGB, IGC, and SGB) and make their decisions. F@CU has an uncharacteristically (for Columbia) straightforward website, and they explicitly tell us why they made the decisions they did.

The money allocated by F@CU trickles down through the governing boards to fund everything from Bacchanal, to the Varsity Show, to the CSC Lunar Gala. And those are just a few events, F@CU funds also provide for the day-to-day needs of hundreds of student organizations.

F@CU can also make special allocations to groups other than the governing boards. For instance, in the past F@CU has allocated money to WKCR, the radio station housed in Lerner.
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Advocates for the Arts Initiative met in the Satow Room in Lerner at 3:00 today in order to gauge student opinion in preparation for their meeting with School of the Arts Dean Carol Becker in two weeks. At issue in the meeting will be the 30% budget cut the Arts Initiative faces for fiscal year 2011, which begins May 1. The areas from which the budget will be cut are particularly contentious since the November announcement that the Arts Initiative would be moved under the authority of the School of the Arts, meaning the Initiative’s revised budget will have to be approved by Dean Becker and her staff. Advocates for the Arts Initiative, which is predominantly led by members of CCSC and GSSC, are concerned that the move will result in the Arts Initiative benefiting SoA students, and not all University students as it has in the past.

In the meeting, which was attended by about 25 students from CC, SEAS and GS, it was clear that the students’ biggest concern over the Arts Initiative has been the lack of transparency in the direction of the Arts Initiative and in budgeting process. While AI staff have been open in communicating with student leaders, SoA administrators in particular have not been open to discussing the budget cuts. In response to this opacity, the consensus that was reached at the meeting was that the goal of the group should be to ensure some form of formal student involvement in the administration of the Arts Initiative. In other words, AAI is not trying to save the Arts Initiative so much as ensure that it continues to work for students outside of the School of the Arts.

You can sign the Save the Arts Initiative petition here.

In a shocking twist to the elections that about seven people voted in, three GSSC election results have been overturned by the GSSC Judicial Committee, overruling a previous decision validating the elections from the Elections Committee.

University Senator (no longer) elect Paul Zachary, VP Policy winner Scott Jurkowski and fallen Academic Affairs victor Richard Adams have all had their victories revoked for campaigning on Facebook through their statuses after the campaigning deadline had passed. Just for some perspective, Adams was the only person in his race to receive any votes, and don’t we all know that someone running unopposed can do whatever the hell they want? Plus, only 79 total votes were cast in Jurkowski’s race, of which he nabbed 50. A lot of the possible positions didn’t even have candidates to run for them. Apathy: because you can’t commit voter fraud if there are not any voters.

The three candidates will not be barred from attempting to regain their offices next year, when, according to a Judicial Committee report, “each of these candidates, as well as any other students who desire, will have the opportunity to apply for appointment to office when the GSSC reconvenes in the fall of 2009.”

The judicial committee added that “the importance and challenge of the work done by the Elections Committee cannot be understated, and as students and Committee members we are grateful for their service.” We’re just going to do the exact opposite of what they said. 

The General Studies Student Council results are in, and the big winner is apathy. New president-elect Katherine Edwards defeated Alfred Davis with 63% of the vote. She will be joined by Hannah Kim as VP Student Life, Jacqueline Thong as VP Finance, Clark Chaheine as VP Communications, and Scott Jurkowski as VP Policy.

More notable, though, was the thorough lack of votes for several positions – in fact, there were no winners for the positions of senior class vice-president, sophomore class president and vice-president, alumni affairs rep, student services rep, or student workers rep, while the freshman class president and vice-president received a stellar fourteen votes. GSers,  give yourselves a pat on the back – you had to work to be so indifferent. Full results after the jump. (more…)