Look out!

The committee to determine who gets SIC space on campus — the new “Special Interest Community House” (AKA the Convent), two EC townhouses, and a space in Wallach — had their final meeting today.  They will be presenting their suggestions to Dean Martinez, who will make the final decisions next week.  Later this month, applications will go out to live in the SICs, to be completed before housing starts.  Student Affairs is hoping that they’ve figured out a good structure to picking what groups get space to use in the future — interests change, after all, and groups are sure to be moving in and out.  Spec has a lot of words about it all.

The Convent and Wallach space are not open to Greek organizations, while the EC townhouses are designated specifically for Greek life.  The SIC House has 5 floors but each floor can hold more than 1 group, depending on their requested space.

The finalists that the committee were choosing between and interviewing with today are as follows:

For the EC townhouses:

  • Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi)
  • Kappa Phi Lambda
  • Pi Kappa Alpha (Pike)
  • Sigma Lambda Beta

For the SIC House and Wallach space:

  • Manhattan House
  • Application Development Initiative (ADI)
  • Columbia Pre-Health Community
  • Student Wellness Project
  • Writer’s House
  • Creative Commons
  • Music Works
  • Student Employee Community Space

The committee consists of 10 members, 5 of which were undergraduates, and were selected by Student Affairs to represent a wide spread of community visions:

  • Cristen Kromm (Assistant Dean for Community Development and Residential Programs)
  • Maria Alba (Assistant Director of Accommodation Services for Housing)
  • Melissa Boone Brown (Graduate Hall Director for the Block)
  • Tara Hanna (Associate Director of Residential Programs)
  • Mia McCurdy (Graduate student assistant to Victoria Lopez-Herrera, associate director of Residential Programs/ Fraternity & Sorority Life & Leadership Develop)
  • Joshua Boggs, SEAS ’15 (ESC SEAS’15 President)
  • Ryan Cho, CC ’13 (CCSC VP Policy, Multicultural Greek Council, and Spec)
  • Christopher Godshall, CC ’15 (CCSC)
  • Denise Machin, CC ’13 (RA)
  • Tim Qin, SEAS ’13 (RA, ESC, CUSenate, Lambda Phi Epsilon)

Renovations are still underway on the SIC House (they were delayed by Sandy but are working to meet their deadlines), but we got some pictures of the work.  Check it out: