Spiral Staircase

Hard to maneuver with food.

Having attended yesterday evening’s CCSC policy meeting, good citizen Sarah Ngu brings us this week’s student government greatest hits list. 

What is cookin’ in Council

CCSC’s and ESC’s Policy Committees, which are responsible for changing stuff, sat around and talked about:

– how to address the rise of cheating scandals
– small meal plans for upperclassmen: worth it?
– how to get administrators to care about the Ferris staircase
– why soccer can’t be a club sport
– online e-forms and how they’ve been made without student input so far
– what to do with leftover alcohol from events

It’s not life-changing, but at least someone’s doing it.

Academic dishonesty: Cheating is on the rise

Worried about the upsurge of cheating incidents, administrators have asked Council to step in and work with the Office of Judicial Affairs, which already has a few student representatives. Bruno Mendes, Academic Affairs Rep, is leading the charge.

Ideas floated: Should we have an ‘honor board’? “Honor code?” What is making people cheat in the first place? The next step is to research how other schools address this issue.

Fun fact: In the University of Virginia, it is more competitive to get on the honor code board than on student council (they take their honor seriously). (Source: Logan Donovan).

Smaller meal plan options for upperclassmen: Worth it?

The current minimum for a meal plan is 75 meals which Christina Fan, Student Services Rep, is trying to reduce, but according to Vicki Dunn, head of dining, any lower means that it’ll cost more to get the meal plan than to buy meals on a meal-by-meal basis. They are considering a “townhall” to talk about this — it seems like the solution to all problems nowadays is to hold a “townhall” (#lifeafterROTC).

What about this idea? Freshmen had a surplus of meal swipes, and upperclassmen have empty wallets and stomachs. Why not set an app or website up that acts like a one-night-stand for meal swipes?

Dining: That damn Ferris staircase

Facilities has taken six months to get back to the students on this issue, meaning: the Ferris staircase is not a priority for them. This basically means that they don’t think students think that this is an urgent concern. Are they right?

Comment: If you’ve had a bad experience on the stairs, post a comment below. The administration reads Bwog and takes what is written here as somewhat/kind of representative of the student body.

Club soccer: The doomed story

The perennial issue of club soccer not being a club sport is resurrected again. The rule is that if there’s a Varsity Sport counterpart, there can’t be a club sport. Most if not all of the other Ivies don’t have this rule.

We do partly because of an overbooking issue — there isn’t enough space to go around, and club sports are at the bottom of the pecking order, even below Intramurals — and partly because Varsity coaches are worried their athletes will drop down to club sports.

Online e-forms: No consultation of student input

Tired of the CCIT’s slowness on making online e-forms, which would save student groups some headache, Dean Martinez decided to outsource it to Campus Labs.

The problem: they’ve created a demo without consulting students on what they’d like to see changed. The demo is being shown to some students on Mar. 31st, but as Karishma Habbu, Student Services Rep, says, “If something goes wrong with this demo you bet your dollar it’s gonna take another year and a half.”

Alcohol exchange policy: What to do with all the leftover alcohol

If you have leftover alcohol at an event, you have to throw it away. Alex Jasiulek, CC’13 Council representative, wants to set up an exchange between student groups so that they can store their excess alcohol and either give it away to another group or re-sell it at a cheaper rate.

Ferris from above via Wikimedia Commons