For our second part in the series of interviews of the competing tickets for the upcoming CCSC elections on Tuesday, Bwog joins Sean Manning Udell, Alexandra Coromilas, Tom Amegadzie, Sonya Chandra and Andy Kim of the After Party, which is running for the 2011 Class Council. Stay tuned in to Bwog today for the rest of the CCSC interviews!

How would you evaluate the job done by the current senior class council?

Tom: This year’s CCSC class did a good job of including all the other councils (the Barnard Senior council, SEAS and GS) because when it comes to senior year a lot of it is event planning and ordering and that stuff and it makes sense for everyone to have a shared input.

Sean: That’s something that we’re going to continue even more next year.

Alexandra: I think they’ve done a great job continuing the traditions like Lerner Pub, but also they had a great turnout for their Homecoming event. They were able to collaborate with athletics, and that’s something that we’re looking to continue. We’re looking to start our own traditions like they’ve done.

Sean: They’ve created a lot of really good precedents for the coming years. They’ve made so many traditions really exciting. Lerner Pub is a tradition that we’ve had for a long time, but this year they’ve started doing themed nights. One month might be jazz-themed, and another a raging disco-party feel, and it attracts different people of the class. Making it as dynamic as possible is really important to get as many people as possible feeing that they’re part of the Senior Year movement.

Sonya: Cliff was generally on his stuff. You were never worried about things getting done. Cliff is generally one of the most organized people in general. It’s good when you have representatives and elected people who you know will never be flaky. That should never be a concern.

In light of the demise of a formal 40s on 40, and the ongoing War on Fun, what campus life events do you plan on holding next year, and how do you think current events like Lerner Pub could be improved?

We’re proposing to start Senior Inauguration. This would be a really big fun social event to see everyone again, a welcome back. We had a welcome dinner this past year at the beginning of this year and it went really, really well. It’s going to be that times 10. Literally. The whole grade there.

We want to have Last Chance New York, which is an ongoing event where every week we send students into the city to do things that they meant to do but just never got around to doing it.

We want to have a Senior Day: 11/11. Why not? It’s just another excuse to party. We also want to have a Senior Camping Retreat. Obviously we can’t force 1100 people to get on 20 buses, but we would solicit as many people who would want to come as possible and structure it kind of like COOP. We also want to organize a Senior Spring Break.

Besides issues that are already being discussed by this year’s council (smoking ban, gender neutral housing, etc.), what do you think should be CCSC’s top new policy priority?

In terms of policy platform ideas that we would love to see happen, there are 4:

1. The first is finishing Gender Neutral Housing. This was something that our Council took on this year and that a couple of us were the lead in, and that’s going to be done next year.
2. Pass/D/Failing language classes that are outside of the Core. Why we can’t pass/fail language classes is ridiculous to me. If you’ve already done the requirements, and you just want to learn language, why is that not an option?
3. We’d like to see a “Thanksgiving at CU” event for students who live far away from home or for students who don’t want to go home on actual Thanksgiving.
4. Textbook Coop: this is something that we’ve talked about for a month or two. The more you talk about it the more it makes sense. It would involve having CCSC put up the capital cost for bringing in textbooks for big classes that people already take, like Chemistry and Econ, and the big lecture classes. Every semester people would rent out their Biology books from us and then give it back at the end of the semester.

(In jest, of course) If you had to steal student government funds, what would you spend them on?

Sean: My tuition!

Tom: I would spend it on a big concert.

Alexandra: Basically he wants to bring Boys Fever to campus.

Tom: —and Boys Noise. And Justice. Daft Punk.

Alexandra: And then we can use some of the money at the concert to give away free alcohol.

Sean: Space is such a big issue here. Why don’t we have more practice rooms and dance rooms? There are so many types of practice rooms that people are looking for. People come here, especially artists, because we’re in NYC and we don’t have as much artistic space as people would think we would, so I guess we would want to expand artistic space on campus.

Alexandra: I would build new athletic facilities and fields, and put them smack in the center of campus, because I just think that the one thing that Columbia is missing is a football field. I don’t know where I would put it.

Sonya: I would go and buy up all the Barnard housing and make it Columbia housing, because Barnard housing is great, and Columbia housing really sucks. So sorry Barnard, I’m coming for you.

What experiences do each of your ticket members bring to the senior class council?

Sean: I have been on council since my first year. This year, Gender Neutral Housing and The Tobacco Work Group were the two front running policies that council has had this year, and I was leading both of those efforts. Beyond that, I was the co-chair of Casino Night. I’m also on the board of the Columbia Queer Alliance.

Tom: I’ve also served on the council for all three years being here. I’ve been heavily involved with Co-Sponsorship Committee every single year. Outside of Council, I’ve also served on the IFC (Inter-Fraternal Council) as VP of Administration. I’m also on the Pi Kappa Alpha executive board.

Alexandra: I’ve only actually served on student council this year but my fresh and sophomore year I was an appointed representative because I was really active on our class council from the beginning, even though I wasn’t elected. Outside of council, I’m in DG. And I’ve served on our executive board for the past two years.

Sonya: I’ve also only been on council for one year. I’ve been on Co-Sponsorship and I’ve also been around on random campus events. I was on Club Zamana for two years, and I’m the president of Dhoom. I was an associate sports editor for the Spectator and I helped to found Awaaz: The Journal of South Asian Culture and Politics.