Bwog breakin’ it down (a few weeks late)

The Rules of Conduct Town Hall took place a few weeks ago, but today we’re bringing you a quick recap by the numbers of who spoke and what went down. Bureau Chief Joseph Milholland was at the Town Hall to bring you the news and to crunch the numbers.

The transcript for the town hall on possible changes to the Rules of University Conduct has been released here. For a big-picture look about what was discussed at the town hall, here are some stats about what was said at the town hall and who said it.

Groups Represented By Students Who Spoke – Some people identified themselves as part of more than one group. In that case, both groups were counted. Some people spoke more than once, but their groups were only counted once for them. All the graduate students who spoke were from the History Department and did not align themselves with any group (they were not however, tallied into the “No Group Declared” section).

No Group Declared: 14

International Socialist Organization: 6

Columbia Prison Divest: 4

No Red Tape: 3

Student Worker Solidarity: 3

Graduate Students: 3

CU Dems: 2

Student for Justice in Palestine: 2

GendeRevolution: 2

Columbia Queer Alliance: 2

PrezBo’s Freedom of Speech Class: 1

Black Students Organization: 1

Coalition Against Gentrification: 1

Muslim Students Association: 1

Everyone Allied Against Homophobia: 1

Columbia Daily Spectator: 1

Barnard-Columbia Divest: 1

Topics Brought Up By Students Who Spoke – The topics generally focused on a few broad areas about the rules changes. Multi-part questions by a single student on a topic were counted as one topic.

The punishment process for rules violations: 12

The content of the rules themselves: 12

Undergrad participation in the committee: 4

Conflicts of interest and biases in the university administration: 3

Surveillance and evidence in hearings: 3

How the rules apply and who to: 3

Nature of the committee: 2

The rules and university staff: 2

Under-represented communities and the rules changes: 1

The supervisor of the rules: 1

Communication within the committee: 1

When the committee meetings are: 1

Administrators in the room: 1

Who calls to review the rules: 1

Which Panelists Answered Questions – This is a count of how many questions each panelist answered. Not every question asked was answered by the panel. If a panelist answered more than one part of a multi-part question, it was tallied as a one response.

Christopher Riano: 15

Zila Acosta: 12

Sejal Singh: 6

Daniel Richman: 3

Lindsey Dayton: 2

Panelists Who Asked Clarification Questions of Students Who Asked Questions – Often the panelists would communicate by asking the student speaking about the nature of the question, often asking about something more specific or an issue the committee was tackling.

Acosta:18

Singh: 5

Richman: 2

Riano: 1

Panelists Who Directly Responded Without Asking Or Answering Any Questions – The panel also often took note of a student’s concern without addressing it. During the town hall, Zila Acosta was making a list of student concerns and would frequently tell students she was adding their concerns to a list.

Acosta: 8

Riano: 2

Overall Panelist Responses

Acosta: 38

Riano: 18

Singh: 11

Richman: 4

Dayton: 2

Note about the transcript: About an hour in, on page 40, the transcript reads “[inaudible].” The inaudible noises were the committee members who were in the audience but not on the panel introducing themselves when asked by a graduate worker. Bwog’s recorder also did not pick up what the committee members said, but the graduate worker said that “eight out of fifteen” committee members where in the room.

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