21 Comments
The sixth floor of Lerner has long been a wasteland, a dumping ground for catering carts, broken elliptical machines, and other variegated detritus. It was the most visible emblem of the silliness of our overbooked student center, and of our university’s dank bureaucratic bowels. But no longer! It is to become… a bank of offices.
It seems the plan is to move some offices up to the sixth floor, which will in turn create space to put all the student advising offices on the fourth floor, which will then free up space in dorms for as-yet-undetermined good things. Probably not the sexy “Lerner 6 = Health Spa + Infinity Pool” announcement you were hoping for, but we take what we can get.
Read the joint CCSC-ESC memo after the jump.
We are delighted provide an update our progress relating to the sixth floor of Lerner Hall. The university has committed to utilize the sixth floor to create a centralized Center for Student Advising. The general plan is to move some of the fourth floor offices up to the sixth floor and use the larger and more accessible fourth floor to create the center. Unifying our advising system both structurally and spatially allows students to have access to a broad range of support throughout their four years at Columbia.
This plan will also increase student access to other space on campus by enabling the university to move advisors out of residential buildings (like Broadway, Carman, Furnald and Shapiro) and utilize that space for students. Some of the suggestions already being considered are new meeting or practice spaces. Considering the heightened space crunch on campus, we believe that creating more space in residence halls will help alleviate some of the difficulties students have in organizing meetings and events.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely,
Michelle Nicole Diamond
Student Body President
Columbia College
Elizabeth Strauss
President
Engineering Student Council
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21 Comments
@graaah What bullshit.
CSA: CC/SEAS service. Let’s put it all in Lerner!
Club meetings: Barnard, GS, and grad students also involved. Let’s shunt them off to Schapiro and Broadway! It’s not like this would take twice as long as just letting clubs meet in Lerner and keeping CSA where it is, besides forcing every club with non-CC members to sign them all in and raising the divide between CC/SEAS and the rest of CU… except, wait, it would!
Way2go, assholes.
@The King of Spain Just imagine if the affluent, politically connected neighborhood hadn’t stopped Columbia from moving health services to McVickar Hall. John Jay Mezzanine and 4th floor could be student space.
@on that note... It could have been another floor of housing too…
@there are already plenty of administrative offices in lerner. It is absurd to think that the administration needs more space considering the amount of struggle students have had in this campus’ history just to get meeting spaces. Literally having to protest for a meeting room is not normal folks, it’s a special columbia brand of whack. How hard could it possibly be for CCSC to represent the students here? I can only imagine that this was some kind of compromise whereby the administrators agreed to end the gridlock on lerner 6 by giving it to themselves.
@... …and this is my receipt… for your receipt…
two notes:
1) it does say something about priorities when the administration has managed to situate itself in the iconic building on campus.
2) there is something to be said about keeping the administration together and on campus. you think bureaucracy is bad now? just imagine what it would be like if these people didn’t get any face time with each other.. (i know, i know, they probably don’t get much now… but about it, it would be exponentially worse…)
@clarification lerner is actually not the student center… it is the “Campus Center”
therefore it is not actually required for them to create more spaces in the building for students. The term campus center means that there should also be administrative services in there as well.
@fine Then where the hell is our student center?
@perhaps we can all enter the vag for some student center fun.
@audacityofhope “The CCSC strongly believe [sic] that Lerner Hall should be the hub of *student* activity, that a student center is essential to a vibrant campus life, and that the building presently falls
short of its full potential. A student center is distinct from an administrative office center
or student services center; it should be a place for the community to come together in a
comfortable and safe environment. It should be a resource to students and student groups
that enhances the quality of campus life and community. Its mission can only be achieved
when student needs are the priority.”
From
[http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ccsc/archives/2002-2003/Report%20for%20the%206th%20Floor%20of%20Lerner.pdf]
@this was seriously the worst idea I heard all ccsc campaign. It’s terrific that lerner 6 is going to be used, but it should go straight to student space. Lerner is, after all, the STUDENT CENTER. I don’t want the crappy scraps off the administrative table, we don’t deserve random rooms in Broadway. Just like Columbia to make everything a step (or 42 steps) harder than it needs to be. This is soo illogical.
@name will they be fixing the elevators while they’re at it?
@hmm I hope that CCSC/ESC follow up on this and make sure that the newly freed up rooms go towards student space.
@*Student* center Do a better job of lobbying, CCSC/ESC. Do what the pros do — use blackmail. Give them hookers.
@Barack Obama Remember when the CCSC and ESC were going to take the Wien footcourt and turn it into more open student space with, like, a gym and a lounge.
What’d the university do with it? More offices.
It was my favorite dining hall too. Assholes.
@you forget there are three dorms that have csa offices in them, they are all going to be something else and could be student space in the end… therefore we are getting more space as well, not just the administrative offices
@agreed Soon every single room on the entire campus will become an office of this or that administrative office. They’ll each go around administering each other, managing, filing, coordinating, documenting, processing, and generally obstructing any productive activity.
There’ll be no more students. No more professors.
Columbia will eventually become one enormous bureaucracy.
Seriously.
@Mr. Helpmann In a free society, information is the name of the game. You can’t win the game if you’re a man short.
@Mr. Lime Well, you can’t have any more chairs! There’s only one left in here and I need that to sit on!
@Barack Obama Nothing like an expanded bureaucracy.
@alexw I think we need to turn the EC highrise into advising offices and then maybe McBain into housing and dining offices. Maybe financial aid could take over John Jay and we could replaces the Watt doubles with some race office or stuff?
I dunno. Just my thoughts.
@YAY! u guys are amazing! :)