The school year might be over as far as final exams and cat-naps in Butler go, but as we learned last summer, there’s never a dull moment for the admin.

As SEAS seniors and their Dean get ready to tear up South Lawn, their student council remind us that there’s more to the story, with a newly released statement reaffirming their confidence in Dean Peña-Mora’s “commitment to undergraduate students.” You can check out all two paragraphs after the jump, but bear with us for a few bullets if you need a recap.

The quick-and-dirty:

• Last October, members of the SEAS faculty expressed dissatisfaction with Dean Peña-Mora’s stint at Columbia in the form of a letter to Provost Coatsworth
• However, we had no idea ’til it was leaked to/published by the NYT in early December; main complaints were that the Dean refused to listen to other staffers, and that his hiring decisions were made at the expense of academic interests
• At the time, Deaña-Mora declined to comment—but, last month, he sat down with Bwog and addressed some of the concerns outlined in the letter; Choice excerpt: “The departments are like states, and states have their interests. But the federal government has to do what’s best for the country as a whole. I need to make decisions that are best for SEAS as a whole.”
• But wait! That’s not all for leadership drama—way back when (and by “when” we mean “August”), former CC Dean Michele Moody-Adams rocked our worlds inboxes with a surprise resignation, to later be chalked up to lots of complicated questions about protecting the College and dubbed Moodygate
• Chem professor James Valentini took over as the interim Dean of the College back in early September, and earlier this month, he talked to Bwog about some of the issues facing the College.
• More than a month ago, PrezBo announced the formation of a student/faculty committee put in place to select a permanent Dean; just last week, the timeline for that decision got pushed back to the end of May “at the earliest”

And without further ado, check out ESC’s statement

A nighttime wanderer encountered this assertive sign inside Morton Williams, crying its outrage to innocent evening shoppers. We don’t know who Brandi is, but MoWils seems to mean business.

Why you gotta be like that, Brandi?

The following arrangement was spotted in Furnald—which may we puh-lease just emphasize is NOT Carman—this past weekend. We’ve got to hand it to the guy who made this sign: you’ve done excellent work with the shading on the giant arrow. Nothing says “clean up after yourself” like some classic light-to-dark 3D action.

Seriously, where did he/she get a laminator?

Tsk, tsk Korilla.

Korilla, the Korean BBQ food truck run by Columbia alums, has been a competitive contestant on the second season of the hit Food Network reality TV show “The Great Food Truck Race.” In this week’s episode, filmed in Memphis, the Korilla truck ran into some problems. Here are the relevant parts of the episode, according to Reality TV Magazine.

“Korilla discovers their location isn’t going so well, as evidenced by their small line. They struggle for the first time in the competition…Tyler [the host] calls the teams to tell them they must switch to solely vegetarian menus… Korilla makes a call for a tofu delivery. However, Korilla BBQ’s tofu tacos don’t exactly impress their meat loving Memphis customers.”

Korilla allegedly did something very naughty. Tipsters have reported that they deposited their own money into the cash box, making it look like they sold more tacos (giving them higher profits) than they actually did. In the climactic final minutes of the show, Tyler exposed them as cheaters and disqualified them from the competition. Korilla tried to defend their reputation, tweeting “WE WOULD NEVER CHEAT ON YOU NEW YORK.”

In the real world, there’s no dean’s discipline, only a city’s scorn. Korilla, we may be disappointed, but you still serve delicious tacos—what a moral quandary.

Lots of paper via Wikimedia Commons.

Claiming seats in Butler is less of a science, and more of an art. There are techniques that work for some locations, but fail in others. This evening, Senior Butler Analyst Alex Jones spotted the stakeout below and uses it to illustrate one of the many finer points of Butler camping: item usage.

The books are messy, too messy...

There are many schools of thought on this issue. Some believe that the minimum that must be left is a laptop, while others affirm that any stranded items must be respected as legitimate. This author seeks to mitigate both arguments, and find a solid ground between the two.

Examining the photograph above, we find that the colonist has left behind a few personal items of clothing. This is a good start, but does not lead one to believe that she/he has any reason for occupation that requires a seat in Butler. Items must demonstrate a unique effort to study or be studious.

The above books, at first glance, suggest such an effort; however upon further examination one finds that they are merely plucked off of the surrounding shelves. Poor form, indeed! Any two-year-old can misallocate books in a library—camping requires determined pseudo-studying!

Library space is provided to students so that they may study in relative harmony within close proximity to academic resources. Unfortunately, there is high demand for spaces of limited supply, and thus consideration must be given to the allocation of said spaces. While there are good reasons that students may need to retreat from their study spots, the moral liberality of space allocation can, and has been, abused by campers who fraudulently feign their claim to a spot for an extended period of time. The world is a rough and dangerous place, and the strong and smart will prosper.

In the wise words of Arthur Weasley, "Times like these, dark times, they do funny things to people. They can tear them apart."

To the distraught and distressed,

Take heart! The day has finally come. Wave goodbye to sleepless nights and weird, stress-induced rashes. Take a deep breath, hold it in for a moment, then exhale. It’s over.

The mystery of one campus flagpole, that is. Oh, you thought we were talking about midterms? Awkward.

But dramatic intros aside, if you were wondering what the deal was these past few days with the tape and signs around the flagpole near Kent, wonder no longer. What you were seeing: the crown on top of the pole needed to be adjusted, so repairs were underway. As of today, the pole should be tape-less and free to approach. Responsibly.

Continuing today’s snow sculpture-related coverage, and apropos to tonight’s J-School lecture on regime change, one of the once proudly (or panoptically!) upstanding snowmen on South Lawn appears to have capitulated, inspiring Bwog to cite Shelley’s “Ozymandias” and post this apt juxtaposition:

Meanwhile, this find on Hamilton Lawn indicates it may not have been quite the bloodless coup:

On the other side of the lawn, however, the week’s most admirable snow folly lives on: what one contributor called “Calvin and Hobbes-esqe sculpture…there’s a snowman bowling with a second snowman’s head”:

Bwog presents a couple of blind items for campaign season. Any guesses?

WHICH Class Council member, running for re-election, admitted to a Bwog reporter at a mandatory candidates’ rules meeting that she was intoxicated? She spent the meeting text-messaging and gossipping about the uselessness of the meeting – and she seemed none too pleased with the top of her ticket, either.

WHICH Class Council member spent all January telling friends she was running against her President, whom she had run with in the last election? She decided against it, ultimately, preventing a fair deal of drama.

And finally, Seth Berliner sends in this report from his Intro to East Asian Civ: Japan class:

Student: So, are you running for University Senator?

Senator-to-Be: Yeah!

Student: I feel like Student Council never gets anything done.

Senator-to-Be: Paper towels!

[pause]

Senator-to-Be: Didn’t you see my e-mail?!  I got paper towels installed in eight

frickin’ kitchens!

- DPD

The CCSC gossip has been flowing like cheap wine at Columbia Cottage. For your edification:

Item #1: Chris Kulawik may have come closer to a CCSC run than anyone realized. As George Krebs struggled to put together a ticket, he received feelers from Kulawik’s associates to see if he was interested in joining a Kulawik ticket. Krebs is associated with the College Dems; Kulawik, of course, with the Republicans. Krebs turned him down, and faced with a limited timeframe, Kulawik decided not to file.

Item # 2: File Felipe Tarud in the long list of candidates who claim that higher-ups in CCSC urged them to run. Tarud, who won’t say which individuals wanted a candidate to oppose Michelle, considered it, but bowed out as he realized other candidates were interested were running and performing what he called a “cost-benefit analysis.”

Ever more whispers from the SGO after the jump!

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For some time now, Bwog has been wondering where Bored at Butler went. Almost a week ago, the site’s normal interface disappeared, replaced by a message that reads “r.i.p. b@b…46,848 posts…down for reconstruction, come back soon…” Bwog knows via comments that some of its readers share its curiosity about the site’s fate. Well, wonder no longer, dear readers, for Bwog has the inside scoop! Correspondent Mark Holden reports:

Issues of privacy and ad hominem have been swirling about Bored at Butler since its inception. Most notably (in my memory, anyway), a lot of people, or maybe just a few prolific posters, talked a lot of smack about some girl named Bethany. But there were other incidents, many others, and the incessant personal attacks, according to my source, made the entire B@B team continually anxious.

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It started with Alexander Hamilton, and now the facebook fascists have struck again. One complainant reports:

“It’s an all out hunt. My Barack Obama account has been disabled. It won’t be long before Peter Parker gets rubbed out too. It was fun while it lasted I suppose. The Columbia Squirrel and Pigeon better watch out. Even The Man got shut down.”

In other facebook news, New School president Bob Kerrey has revealed some disturbing beliefs about the role of a university president. Bwog sincerely hopes that Lee C., who has gained the respect and admiration of at least 44 Columbia men, doesn’t get any ideas.

Meanwhile, in another corner of facebook, PrezBo isn’t being treated so well. Anti-expansion activists, with a sense of humor? Who knew?

Oh, the scandal! According to Bwog’s Lit Hum teacher, a positively Virgilian battle took place at a meeting this morning in preparation for this Friday’s final, which is written by committee. Apparently, there is disagreement over how best to torture freshmen.

But besides squabbling over exam content, every two years the syllabus undergoes revision. This year, changes include reading shorter Cervantes works instead of Don Quixote, replacing Medea with the Bacchae, reading bits of the full Divine Comedy rather than all of the Inferno, and replacing King Lear with Hamlet.

Debatable, but not outside the realm of reason. Here, then, is the shocker: adding to the first semester list a play by former Czech president Vaclav Havel, who will be coming to speak next year. Wait—since when did Lit Hum include reading people who are still alive?

Bwog’s teacher has her opinions but stayed out of the drama. “It’s catered,” she said. “I just eat, and smile, and watch it.”