‘Twas a dark and stormy night. Lightning flashed over Low and thunder rumbled outside as the members of CCSC took their seats in the Satow Room on Sunday night for another rousing debriefing of the zany world of Columbia politics.

The meeting began with a discussion about a possible kickball “event” between CCSC and ESC. After finally suppressing our excitement about such an event, Bwog struggled to focus on attention on a brief discussion on a report on grade inflation. Academic Affairs rep Karen Woodin discussed her meeting with Dean Yatrakis and shared that the report is intended to garner student responses and opinions on grade inflation.

Print quotas were up next, and the council discussed the need for increased print quotas for English, history and poli sci majors. CCSC President George Krebs simply hoped to “squeeze as many pages as we can out of them.” The council then moved on to a discussion of how to best mark Dean Austin Quigley’s accomplishments throughout his 14 years as CC Dean now that he is stepping down. Options ranged from an event that would include members of all four classes (and plenty of coffee and lemon squares to feed them) to a less formal soccer match, reflecting Quigley’s love for the sport. Krebs noted that much of Quigley’s most important work goes on behind the scenes, and that many Columbians are not aware of Quigley’s ability to raise “a hell of a lot of money for this university.”  

The council went on to discuss school spirit initiatives, including a CC Spirit Panel that would seek to define “what CC means” and try to pin down the CC spirit. The initiative, spearheaded by Robyn Burgess, garnered a variety of responses from the council, many of which communicated — surprise, surprise– hesitation. The concept of a spirit panel did not seem to be the main problem, but rather the difficulty of attracting enough general student body support and the details of what such a panel would involve. 

The meeting wrapped up with a discussion on alcohol policy, which got the council members as well as the lightning outside riled up. When the now-ubiquitous phrase “War on Fun” came up, VP for Policy Adil Ahmed said with a smirk, “but we’re not calling it that, remember guys?” The current goal is to try to lessen the severity of punishment for alcohol use at smaller “dorm get-togethers”. The senior members of CCSC noted that, at campus events where alcohol is served, the lack of information about exactly how much alcohol will be served causes students to pregame too heavily. Ahmed noted that he had been simply “ignored” thus far by Dean Kromm on these issues, at which point Krebs began to not-so-subtly nudge Ahmed under the table. After being poked for a few moments, Ahmed addressed CCSC as a whole: “You guys know this. It sucks. Bureaucracy sucks.”

– ECS