nasty bugs, messing up the elections

Sean Zimmermann reports from last night’s ESC meeting.

ESC representatives explained that there was a glitch in the CCSC election website that allowed students to vote for any class council, instead of limiting them to voting only on their own year’s candidates. ESC says that the bug did not affect ESC elections, and they suspect the problem has already been fixed.

VP Policy Logan Donovan said the Committee on Undergraduate Education is considering adding additional classes that can count toward non-technical electives. Under current rules, there are classes that cannot count for either a technical or non-technical elective. If changed, this rule would take effect for all classes, starting next fall. It is unclear if this change would count toward classes already taken.

ESC voted that it would split GS’ co-sponsorship contributions with the other councils, provided that sanctions are taken against General Studies Student Council. The GSSC ran out of funds, and is therefore no longer able to fund cosponsorships. GS senator Jose Robledo, who attended the ESC meeting, expressed his support for imposing sanctions against GSSC; he told ESC that he believes action should be taken against his council, as mistakes were made earlier in the year.

Printers may be coming to Carlton Arms. Scott Wright, VP of Campus Services, told the council that he is working to have a printer installed in the much-maligned dorm by the end of the semester.

Misunderstanding of technical terms via Wikimedia Commons

Update, 4/5/12: GSSC sent us a press release clarifying that they didn’t run out of money:

Press Release | General Studies Student Council | 4/5/12

There was a misinterpretation of the JCCC and ESC meetings information relayed via bwog this past Tuesday regarding our funding of F@CU and joint co-sponsorships. The GSSC wishes to bring clarification to the matter.

To be clear, GSSC is NOT out of money. We aim to spend GS student life fees with the utmost care. GSSC has spent $4,300.00 for additional co-sponsorships this year. We set aside funds at the beginning of the year based on last year’s JCCC contributions. Our contribution to F@CU to support student clubs and organizations this year was $95,712.87.

ESC graciously offered to increase their in-ratio co-sponsorship to cover the remaining requests for the year in co-sponsorships. Bwog paints it as the allusion that the ESC was coerced into such a decision. This is not the case.

We remain fully committed to working with the other undergraduate councils and wholeheartedly support the student life at Columbia University. We hope that by acknowledging this issue, we can open up a dialoge on how to better include GS students in events that request co-sponsorships in the future.

Please send your questions or comments about this issue to gssccommunications@columbia.edu.