At tonight’s CCSC meeting, Daphne Chen announced that 2016 representative and Campus Life Committee member Ben Kornick resigned for “personal reasons.” In this letter to the council’s board, leaked on our anonymous tip form, he disagrees with the current state of the Campus Life Committee (one of four committees) and notes how he hopes to spark “self-reflection” in other members of the council.
He writes that he was “disappointed to see a lack of initiative, creativity, dedication, and work ethic among the current leaders and proposed future leaders of the Campus Life Committee.” Kornick questioned the throwing away of money on giveaways and other events with poor planning and minimal support; he recommended that Campus Life “disband and disperse its budget to groups who could put it to better use.”
Kornick continues on about three kinds of CCSC members: “those who do a ton of work and come to every meeting, there are those who do dismal work but come to every meeting, and there are those who do a ton of work but do not make many meetings.” Kornick places himself in the last category. According to CCSC’s end of semester report, he missed 2.5 meetings in the fall; out of the thirty-odd members of the council, two members missed three meetings, and one other missed 2.5.
CCSC members have spoken recently of tensions within the group. After last week’s meeting, the council held an off-the-record discussion about the “elephants in the room.” We hear the trumpeting. In addition, indirect elections will be held to fill Ben’s position. Ramis Wadood, CC ’16 president, says CCSC “would love to do a direct election, but right now [they’re] leaning towards an indirect election, which would be as direct as possible.” Hmm.
Read Kornick’s full letter to the board below.
February 15, 2014
Dear CCSC,
I am writing today to inform you of my decision to resign as an elected Representative of the CCSC Class of 2016. I am not happy with the direction that the Campus Life Committee has taken and do not feel that the current leadership can bring about a positive turn of events in the near future. However, please note that out of respect for the organization as a whole, I will see to my responsibilities and obligations by continuing to work on my current projects, including the 9-day Columbia Music Festival and various activities sponsored by the Class of 2016 Council.
This past year, I ran for an elected representative position on CCSC for the Class of 2016, in hopes that I would be able to have a greater impact on developing events and activities that would bring about a stronger sense of community on campus. Urban schools like Columbia often face a lack of school spirit and campus unity. With the resources available to CCSC both on campus as well as within the greater New York City, I was disappointed to see a lack of initiative, creativity, dedication, and work ethic among the current leaders and proposed future leaders of the Campus Life Committee. Last year’s committee streamlined many new and exciting events, while this year’s has just been playing catch-up on the “mandatory” events we have to throw. It seems that we are throwing money at giveaways and events other groups are planning rather than stepping up and planning our own. While writing this, I received yet another email about a proposal to throw money and minimal support at an event RHLO is doing. I am not saying we shouldn’t support these other groups, but we have to prioritize our own work at some point. Further, when one person caused a major setback in Columbia Music Festival, there were talks of just cancelling it. That’s 50,000 dollars. That amounts to a yearly salary for many Americans. Who are we to just throw it away?
This past year, CCSC has been a huge disappointment. The leaders of the Campus Life Committee have been unprofessional, uncommunicative and unsupportive of the members at large, who are working tirelessly to make things happen.
The Campus Life Committee of CCSC has a large financial backing, particularly in comparison to the other Councils and various clubs, and yet does very little, with the exception of simple events around “swag” and giveaways. I feel that the goal should be to use its budget to bring unique and special events to campus that would further unify the student body and encourage school spirit. Glass House Rocks is a perfect example of the type of thing CCSC should be immersing itself in, and, although I imagine the Council might in fact applaud themselves for it, I would caution CCSC to take credit for it, as for the last two years, it was run by non-elected members. All CCSC did was foot the bill. Furthermore, with uninspiring leadership, it is simply hard to stay motivated. Nevertheless, I tried to instill changes to the best of my ability as the only underclass member of the committee, but those changes have only brought Campus Life Committee up from a dysfunctional committee to a functional one, not one that should be praised.
There is so much we could do and it is for this reason that I wanted to run for VP of Campus Life. As the only active elected member of Campus Life not graduating, I thought I was the most qualified candidate. However, both running parties informed me of their decision to go with someone else both less qualified and less experienced than me but who fit the demographic profile they were looking for to “round out their party.”
Putting my issues and concerns aside, I encourage those running next year to seriously think about why they are running and what they hope to accomplish as a member of the Board. I recognize the good work of the Policy Committee but I am very concerned about the Campus Life Committee. The Committee is not in a good place at this time, since its strongest members are graduating. If we do not have in place the leaders qualified enough to make good things happen, perhaps CCSC should move away from planning events and put the money towards sponsoring events produced by other clubs and groups. In other words, if we don’t start achieving excellence, I recommend that Campus Life disband and disperse its budget to groups who could put it to better use.
As far as I can tell, there are three types of people in CCSC. There are those who do a ton of work and come to every meeting, there are those who do dismal work but come to every meeting, and there are those who do a ton of work but do not make many meetings. I like to think I am part of the third group and my resignation is one way of owning up to that fact. I do not see the value in meetings where we sit around and talk in circles and nothing gets done. I hope the resignation of someone in the third category sparks some self-reflection for those who are in the second category. I feel I have worked very hard for this organization, and yet, when the leadership draws the line for potential impeachment or resignation, only the third category is significant. Perhaps the CCSC Constitution should be revised such that members in the second category also qualify for impeachment. Or better yet, that these members hold themselves accountable and consider resigning, just as I have done.
For the most part, my experiences in CCSC have been great. I have met a ton of people who I absolutely love and respect. I want to make this clear, as this letter highlights the negatives rather than the positives. To those I love, you know who you are and I sincerely hope we stay in touch, even though many of you are graduating. I wish you all the best. Finally, I hope this letter comes off as constructive criticism rather than an attack, but ultimately, if anyone has any questions, I invite you to come speak to me directly.
Best,
Benjamin Kornick
Photo via Sig Nu
69 Comments
@I Hate That It's Always Sunny at Columbia Last year, Richard Sun. This year, Bob Sun. Enough please. @slugline:
@Anonymous What a hardo
@GSer @Learn your facts: Hey! I told you kids to stay out of the damned yard! How come every time you talk to someone it’s about betraying someone else?
@Poor Wittle Benji I am very sorry you didn’t fit the “demographic profile.” It’s just sad that educational institutions and employers no longer have any need for stuck up, conceited, spoiled ass whiners.
@okay just stop point well taken, it wasn’t the best phrase to use, but come on you know what I mean. there’s just no need for further personal attacks when the issue has been addressed, and especially when this has nothing to do with the post itself.
@John Who gives a shit? What has columbia student council ever done for me? I say they reimburse all the money we paid in student fees. All taxation is theft anyway. They’re just going to fill the position with another sociopath lifetime bureaucrat who delights in making all our lives as burdensome as possible.
@weak if u do the troll @ least make the subtle and the good job
also student fees mostly end up in the hands of student groups so i guess youre proposing getting rid of student groups?
@well money ending up in the hands of student groups isn’t all good.
student groups generally hoard money until the end of the semester and then realize theyve got to spend it and then hold massive, inefficent study breaks.
and then there are student groups that hold one massive event a year so that they can put in their resumes that they “organized X impressive event with keynote speaker Y which drew an audience of Z” (i’m looking at you preprofesisonal clubs)
of course, there are a few groups that actually do hold massive events because they care (Zamana’s culture show, the Chinese Lunar Gala thing, etc). but many groups don’t.
@CC '15 I’ll preface this comment by saying I definitely am not an expert on the 250+ students groups at this school and I agree with your points re: preprofessional clubs, culture clubs, etc., specifically the fact that a lot of preprofessional groups hold these events with speakers or panelists or whatever that are pretty useless to anyone who’s not interested in finance. That being said, I think those events are MUCH better attended than at-large student council events, and also that a lot of other groups hold smaller scale events throughout the year (I always see fliers for various culture group study breaks, plus dance groups that have a few shows a semester, etc.).
Quite frankly, I don’t attend many of these events because I’m not part of these groups or am busy or whatnot, and I don’t know what the attendance is like for these events. But I would much rather see money going toward X preprofessional group on campus that held Y event that Z students attended because there are actually Z students on campus that want to go into finance/consulting/____, than that money going toward some student council event that Z-50 students attend. Generally speaking, I think each of the 250+ groups on campus does serve a portion of the student body. I don’t know if I think the council(s) serve the entire student body as they profess to.
Again, not an expert on this, so this is just my observation. Feel free to throw real figures at me that would refute this.
@CC '15 And I also would hope that the governing boards do a good enough job that those student groups that don’t really do *all that much* don’t get that much funding, either, i.e. I would hope that F@CU actually does work as a process of (semi) efficient funding, at least.
@lol tl;dr this is fucking columbia student council. really not that big of a deal
@poppy seeds literally doe
@CC'16 u g h I DO NOT CARE as long as we still have bagelpalooza
@Anonymous bagels – the opiate of the masses
@slugline I’m sure the CCSC leadership orchestrated this “leak.” The resignation, the indirect election—it’s all part of Bob Sun’s plan. Bwog needs to expose him, and—
*falls into subway tracks*
@Anonymous Bob sun has to be one of the most repugnant people I know
@CCSC member yeah he thinks he’s god or something, and is the only person who is smart enough to have an opinion about anythinga
@Jaded CC'14er People like Bob get elected when elections go uncontested.
@Jaded CC'14er “Bwog needs to expose him”
Oh my god, can we please…?
@Frank Meechum is that you? <3 ;]
@Anon Oh wait…you had me at CCSC.
@Anonymous @bwog, what was the class rep resolution?
@anon This is a perfect example of why some organizations need a single ruler to dish out the goods. Teams sometimes don’t work. #MONARCHYYYYYYY #WEWANTAQUEEN #LONGLIVETHEQUEEN
@Kevin Zhang Regardless of the specific merits or demerits of the Student Life Committee, the concentration of student life fees and money in the Student Councils is inherently inefficient. CCSC and the other councils should take a long look at giving out more funds to their governing boards rather than hoarding it for their own committees.
I have a stake in this–I’m involved with CORE, the student entrepreneurship society, and we receive $300/year in funding. The price tag on hosting Jack Dorsey in September was $1,500. Every month, our board members personally kick in money to fund our online services, food for our events, and giveaways for our awareness campaigns. It’s unfair for us and for other groups like ours to have to languish with insufficient funding while the councils create pools seemingly solely so they can create more committees with which to hand them out.
I hear all the time that we should apply to the alphabet soup of funding programs they’ve set up–CIF, JCCC, SPGs, etc–but this is not free. Neither are the corporate sponsorships we have had to turn to. It takes a lot of time to jump through the hoops, prepare for and make presentations, and then to wait for the funds to be transferred, in the middle of which is a lot of uncertainty that impedes decision-making.
We were approved [and continue to be grateful] for funding from JCCC in November to cover our Jack Dorsey event, but we have yet to receive the money. It’s not fun hanging out with a thousand-dollar hole in your budget.
This is especially unfortunate when the F@CU system already exists [that is, the governing boards] to allocate that money on a timely basis, at the beginning of the year, to student groups that create valuable programming for the community.
So please–regardless of whether or not these council committees need to be shaken up, I hope our council members will consider giving the governing boards, and the student groups, money that they’ll be able to put to work immediately.
@check out the fall semester report CCSC gave out 74.2% of its budget to governing boards, 13.9% to the facilities and security funds (which go exclusively to clubs), and 6.2% to cosponsorships and other miscellaneous funds (which go to clubs and things like student project grants). it keeps only 4.6% for CCSC spending and 1.1% to staff the student government office on the fifth floor of lerner.
@CC '15 That’s all good and well but do you know how much money 4.6% actually IS? CCSC got $982368 (http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2012/11/02/administration-releases-student-life-fee-breakdown) last year (’12-’13), so 4.6% of that is ~$45,189. This is (according to what is said above) with all the money they give out already taken out, i.e. all the money they keep for themselves. What events does CCSC throw solely by themselves? The biggest/only one I can think of that tons of students benefit from is GHR, *maybe* CMF which is still fairly new. And don’t forget the hundreds of thousands of $ CCSC has built up in surplus in the last few years.
@Anonymous While I don’t know if the JCCC can determine the correct allocations for the greatest student utility, I do think allotting one event grant per student organization is a fair start. The groups and events that we fund are reviewed by the entire committee and are typically well-organized events that target a significant chunk of the student population (these are guidelines in the application). I personally believe that there’s not always an objective argument for why X event would be better than Y event, so it does seem fair for us to give all groups a fair shot.
@anonymous the money covers all four class council’s budgets too, in addition to CCSC programming and CCSC’s portion four-school programming like tree lighting. major discovery, class apparel, bagelpalooza, glass house rocks, tea with transfers, lerner study hall, hudson terrace formal, boat formal, winter wonderland, lerner pub, oktoberfest, homecoming week, basketball mania and more.
@CC '15 Not sure what you mean by “covers all four councils” — check the story. That figure is CCSC, only. ESC got its own $330k from undergrad student life fees (CC/SEAS), BC’s SGA and GS’s GSSC are funded separately so can’t speak to that. As to the rest of your comment, very helpful, thanks for that. Some of those events are great, and it makes sense that each class gets its own funding. I don’t know if CCSC releases how it spends its money but I think that that might be helpful in terms of keeping both the whole council and the class councils accountable for events (i.e. a line by line breakdown). How much money does it cost CCSC to do Lerner/John Jay Study Hall? Or class apparel? Also, what’s the attendance on these events? I remember one very very very poorly attended 2015 class event last year…
I’d also like to have a better understanding of WTF happens to the surplus, exactly. Councils have a shit ton of money sitting in their bank accounts (prob. not literally since bureaucracy! Who knows where all this money actually is?) from years past that they’ve been trying to get rid of through things like Student Project Grants, no?
@CC '15 Sorry — totally misread and thought you were talking about all four schools’ councils.
Only additional thought I have is: How many people attend class events (this differs for each class depending on event/marketing/etc.)? Something like the boat cruise for juniors sold out and I think that’s great, but isn’t the annual freshman class Winter Wonderland always shitty? (At least in the last few years that I’ve been here and the things that I’ve heard, it def. was for us freshman year a total waste.)
Class programming is important but I see a lot of events that are poorly attended and I wonder if that money would be better spent elsewhere. This is not true universally of course, and it would be hard to select where is worth it to spend money and where it’s not before the events happen so I don’t want to place the blame anywhere, but I think it’d be worth a transparent examination and discussion of where the $ goes for these things.
@Kevin Zhang Thanks for your reply–I think this is a great point and I appreciate the perspective.
I think what I would like to point out here is that the 7% of money you are talking about here amounts to over $100,000. That’s a very significant amount of money.
My point was never that we are giving a disproportionate amount of money to the councils. My point is that we are continuing to reserve large amounts of money for the councils without clear reasoning as to why this is more efficient than offering it to the governing boards or directly to student groups.
@anonymous the money ccsc keeps for internal spending goes towards planning school-wide or class-specific events, usually non-specialized, such as “Major Discovery”, class apparel, or bagelpalooza. things that are the basic responsibility of student council and not the mission of other clubs.
@CCSC Member okay so here’s my thinking on exactly your issue: you only receive 300$/a year. you have a fantastic group that does absolutely amazing work on this campus. when we have discretionary control over some moderate sized pot of money, we can make sure that groups who are doing really awesome work receive funding. you think if we redistributed the JCCC fund that your group would’ve seen some massive increase to your budget? because you wouldn’t have. you would’ve been stuck with your $300/year while larger more established groups got increases. of course the amount in the JCCC fund isn’t enough to provide a meaningful contribution to the large number of groups on campus anyway.
my point is this: you got funded. if the “reforms” you were talking about were to take place, you wouldn’t have been. and THAT is why we keep control of some of the money. it’s a way to balance out governing board politics and to HELP NEW GROUPS in particular, who have little to no history with the governing boards and no way to prove that they’re deserving of the funding they need to pull off great events.
@Kevin Zhang Hey, I appreciate the response. I see your point, but I don’t think that what I am arguing is that we should divide this money evenly and just give it to all the groups.
What I am saying is that it is inherently inefficient for a centralized committee of a few people to try to be available as a responsive resource for hundreds of clubs.
Rather, there is an entire infrastructure of representatives, boards, and committees already at the F@CU level that works day-to-day with groups and understands their specific needs. From what I am told, ABC removed its own appeals and co-sponsoring process in favor of JCCC. My point would be that this is a step backwards–you are moving money away from the boards and reps that work with specific groups and giving it to a group of people more insulated from what each group does.
Let me also give a specific example of why I feel there’s a disconnect between the process and the needs of student groups: JCCC only allows one event-based grant per year and one travel-based grant per year. If your stated aim is to assist new groups, then you are in fact penalizing more active clubs in favor of those that only run one event a year.
My suggestion is that we allocate the funds for activity boards and representatives to allocate as co-sponsorships, with as little restrictions on discretion as possible. Stop keeping this money in insulated committees with rules created by folks who–they are generous, kind, and well-meaning, but–don’t work with student groups or approve their purchases day-to-day.
@Anonymous I think your specific example would make sense if the JCCC did not completely distribute all of its funds at the end of the day. Fortunately, it does, and a variety of student groups receive funding. The point I’m trying to make is that just because CORE or any other student group can make good use of all the extra funds doesn’t mean that it should be able to. Student life fees come from every student and should necessarily be invested in a diversity of groups. The reason that JCCC limits the number of grants an org can apply for is to encourage diversity in programming on campus.
@Kevin Zhang Do you think it’s fair to assume that JCCC can correctly allocate funding in line with what diversity of events and activities students want to pay for?
I am also not saying that groups don’t eventually receive their funding. I understand and appreciate the objectives but I feel like the pursuit of those objectives has resulted in a maze of committees, procedures, and guidelines that groups have to navigate, in exchange for unclear benefit.
Namely, the stated goals so far:
1. To more fairly provide flexible funding for new groups: Yes, but limited to one event per group.
2. To allocate resources fairly among different groups: Well, does JCCC indeed do this? Can anyone say for sure that it does? Would it be any better at this than the governing board allocation process?
@Anonymous @Kevin Zhang: CORE was pretty much dormant prior to this year…
@Kevin Zhang I appreciate your thoughts and I think this is an important point.
1. I don’t think this is a case limited just to CORE. I think that plenty of other groups could benefit from funding currently allocated to pools at the councils.
2. Look, this isn’t directly related to the point I am trying to make, but I think the notion that we should have a one-year lag in providing funding to active groups is mistaken. I understand that it is common wisdom that we should wait a year to give active student groups money.
Why? It seems to me that we would be withholding money when it could be most effective, then supplying it when the situation is less certain.
When we know that a student group is active and has concrete plans, that’s when we should provide targeted funding–immediately. Waiting a year just means we’re giving a year for the students involved to graduate or get frustrated with a lack of resources.
@Frank Pinto '12 Yeah, that’s not really true…
CORE was dormant in 2009 yes (when I restarted it). You could even say CORE was dormant in 2010 when we were sputtering to get a solid board together and to figure out what people really wanted from Entrepreneurship at Columbia; we had three or four lackluster events that year. By Fall 2011 though CORE was doing real events again (check the beginning https://www.facebook.com/COREatCU) with turnouts of anywhere from 10 – 80 and it just went up from there.
Building an organization from scratch takes time and the amount of hoops orgs need to jump through to get any kind of funding, and then the limited funding available once all that is done, is a huge hindrance to new org growth and survival. That shouldn’t be a surprise, a heavily regulated funding climate or a funding crunch inhibits innovation and bottom-up growth always (because, entrepreneurship).
CORE self-funded pretty much everything until 2012, it sucked but was necessary because of the stuff Kevin brought up. If CCSC can’t perform use that money to find the student groups that can. Either on another org that can create campus culture better or on orgs affecting the community in a positive way in other ways (like CORE).
@CCSC Member I can hardly speak for the council on this and I doubt that my comments reflect even a single other person’s opinion on CCSC, but my understanding since coming to campus has always been like this: of course the money should go to the governing boards in exactly the way you’ve described. give the cosponsorship money to the people who best know how to use it. so why isn’t it like that? two options: either CCSC went on a power trip or there is a lack of trust of the governing boards on the part of CCSC. personally, I am skeptical of the idea that ABC and SGB are more capable of giving out cosponsorships than CCSC is. it seems logical, yes, but I really do think that, historically, the governing boards have demonstrated that they aren’t more capable of doing this. the reason I would advocate for the continuation of CCSC’s various funds is that I think these funds create more effective funding streams, where the money goes to projects that will most benefit student life here. definitely more bureaucratic and less efficient, sure. but if the money were redistributed at F@CU then I don’t think what you’re hoping to happen would actually happen.
so i’m saying i definitely agree with your vision but doubt that it could work out in reality. this all highlight some concerns with the governing board structure and student group structure more generally at Columbia. and to the restrictions point…like here’s where we’re getting to a concrete example. I can imagine the rules and restrictions that would go into place with ABC and SGB cosponsorships and they’re a lot more restrictive than the one’s we have. that said, I’m definitely open to the idea of easing some of our restrictions if that makes sense. i hesitate to say that one of our aims of the JCCC is to help new groups, although i kinda already said that. to clarify, that’s more of a benefit of the aim to help new events/initiatives that won’t receive funding because ABC operates in a very historical way. I’ve said enough that my point is clear, I guess. thanks for raising specific concerns. I think they’ll be important to future discussions and at the F@CU conversations this year.
@Kevin Zhang Hey, thanks for this response–I have no arguments, I actually agree with your points. :)
@Tony Lee “I can imagine the rules and restrictions that would go into place with ABC and SGB cosponsorships and they’re a lot more restrictive than the one’s we have. ”
Hey, so there are actually no restrictions with ABC co-sponsorships. Obviously we ask groups what they’re going to use it for before granting it, but winning a co-sponsorship is basically generating more revenue and we trust our groups to spend it on whatever they think is wise, which is pretty much everything minus alcohol.
I guess the only rule would be that if a club has a co-sponsorship benefits, ex. $50 for the organization logo on their publicity materials, they would publicize ABC just like they would any other student group that gave them money. If there are no such plans in place, they don’t have to do anything, as we don’t want to force groups to put the ABC logo on their flyers when they don’t do so for any other groups.
If you ever have any questions, please feel free to come to our open board meetings every Wednesday in Lerner 501 at 8:30pm, or shoot us an email at abc@columbia.edu. Also, we have Saaket, who is like the nicest kid ever, attending every one of your weekly meetings, so you can talk with him too!
@Anonymous 1. IIRC, CORE has only recently begun to host large scale events. ABC funding is determined in part by an organization’s financial needs in the past. Perhaps CORE will see an increase in the future given their performance.
2. Speaking as another group that has applied to JCCC, it was mentioned that groups receiving grants would be able to spend into a deficit while the money hasn’t been transferred.
3. Just allocating more money to a governing board doesn’t mean the money will go to the right places. Most governing boards oversee tens to hundreds of student groups and will still need historical evidence to determine which student groups actually get increases. In the past, I believe ABC had a similar co-sponsorship committee to the JCCC as well.
@Kevin Zhang Thanks for your response!
1. Sure, I think that’s fair. I would challenge you on whether past financial need is a good indicator of future financial need, but I think that’s kind of a separate discussion [I think this creates lag time between need and money disbursed–in other words, missed opportunities]. I also don’t think this discussion is limited in scope to just CORE.
I am broadly saying that giving money to student groups who have definite plans from the beginning, or to governing boards that work with groups directly, is a more efficient way of making sure that money gets spent on successful programming.
2. I would push back on the notion that spending into the deficit is such a good idea. Keeping track of the exact amount of money you ought to have based on payables not yet realized is kind of an unnecessary burden, isn’t it? What if you have trouble getting receipts and are denied the eventual disbursement for any reason? My point is not that it definitively impedes spending. I am saying that it creates uncertainty and unease.
I will also be the first to admit that my club has trouble keeping their finances straight enough without having to account for potential future payments. Maybe this is isolated just to us [we’ll train a treasurer eventually! :)] but I think it’s probably not as unique a problem as we might think.
3. Yes. I think an ABC committee will have more day-to-day information about their own groups than would CCSC, and might therefore be in a better position to respond more quickly. They also just have more people and fewer priorities than CCSC.
@I DON'T UNDERSTAND why anyone cares about CCSC?
@looooool His point was kind of proven when someone decided to leak this letter…
@trollllololololol …unless he leaked it himself…
@bai ben’s claiming that he wasnt chosen for a higher position because of “demographics.” so um yeah let’s just take that at face value. based on this letter he doesnt sound like a good person to work with, regardless of what he may be able to do individually.
@and if he is referring to “demographic profile,” aka non-white people, then that’s absolutely unnecessary and repugnant.
also.
racism.
@Anonymous @and: As terrible as it sounds, race, class year, and gender are all often considered for the selection of student council parties, rather than merit.
@Uchehi Nominate me for kings crown award please!
@ok just stop It’s time to get over that. We need to just know when to let things rest. She apologized, so you need to be equally as responsible and stop perpetuating negativity about your classmates.
@yeehaw please stop saying things like “perpetuating negativity”. cannot believe anyone would use that seriously.
@okay just stop point well taken, it wasn’t the best phrase to use, but come on you know what I mean. there’s just no need for further personal attacks when the issue has been addressed, and especially when this has nothing to do with the post itself
@Another note about the letter Is Briana Sadler next?
@curious whos on the campus life committee board now and who is running next year?
@Yo Can someone just leak the bacchanal performer already?
@Anonymous @Yo: Spice Girls
@? ask uchechi
@lol nominations for info
@lawl lawl at uch-the-guch
@sources say lupe fiasco
@sad ccsc has been a disappointment from the very moment Daphne selected her e-board
@yeehaw lets have us a direct election
@anon TRIGGER WARNING FOR THOSE WHO GOT FUCKED BY CAMPUS LIFE
@Fan Benjamin Kornick is a great person and extremely hard worker. Sorry to see him leave
@Wow Direct Quote: “As the only active elected member of Campus Life not graduating, I thought I was the most qualified candidate. However, both running parties informed me of their decision to go with someone else both less qualified and less experienced than me but who fit the demographic profile they were looking for to “round out their party.”
Could he be more arrogant? No one person is qualified for a position. This is the issue with CCSC/leadership at Columbia, people become so full of themselves – no you aren’t that important. Get over it.
@Learn your facts @Wow: For your information, the two candidates who have been chosen for the two main running parties – which have not been publicly announced yet to my knowledge – have barely planned any CCSC events. Ben launched Columbia Music Festival as a first-year who was not even an elected member of CCSC. CMF is now likely to be a campus tradition that will last for many years. The fact that Ben was not invited to join a party out of “demographic” considerations is outrageous and an insult to meritocracy. Even the current CCSC board would likely admit, although probably only in private, that Ben is by far the most qualified candidate for VP Campus Life. Now that Ben has resigned, there will not be a single member of CCSC Campus Life that has the administrative connections and experience to make it happen. We’re counting on you, ESC, to fill the void.
@In the middle @Learn your facts: Ok, from what I know, I definitely agree Ben should be in that position, so I agree there, but CCSC members do need to check their egos a bit. I don’t think that quote is particularly out there for something a CCSC guy would say.