Welcome back to regular weekly coverage ESC

Now that the semester is settling down, Bwog will begin regular coverage of ESC, CCSC, and SGA meetings. The new ESC Bureau Chief, Rachel Deal, covered Monday night’s meeting.

Last evening, the Engineering Student Council’s first meeting of the semester took place, and President Caroline Park started the meeting off by emphasizing how excited she was to work with the various council members and to continue last year’s “really strong streak.” She also said she looked forward to bonding more and also getting to know members from the other councils at their upcoming retreat in upstate New York (which Dean Kromm will be attending for the first time).

A large part of the meeting was spent discussing the Food Insecurity Proposal, as VP Policy Meaghan Hurr wanted to get feedback from council members in person since a lot of the work done on the proposal was done over email during the summer. Park clarified that the councils needed students to donate at least 5,000 swipes in all in order for the proposal to pass, and she felt that the sense of urgency of this requirement was not being communicated very well. A current barrier to getting people to donate swipes is that Columbia Dining said they needed people to sign a physical sheet of paper to verify the donation of their swipes, but Class of 2018 President Vinay Mehta suggested that they could start using a Google form (for which you would have to sign in using your UNI) instead.

Mehta also discussed recent changes to the Art of Engineering course. Though the 2018 grade council originally pushed for an additional requirement that students join an engineering-related club, instructor David Vallancourt said he would only require that students join any club, and that participation would be based on an honor system. Vallancourt also said he would put the proxy card reader on hold for now unless attendance starts to drop significantly.

Updates:

• VP Finance Neha Jain is working to get digital New York Times subscriptions.
• VP Student Life Josh Bazile was very pleased by the 900-person turn-out at Passport to Columbia, and hopes to keep the momentum going with this week’s Back to School Lawn Party and events for Homecoming.
• University Senator Jillian Ross announced that the Diversity Commission was passed by the USenate’s Executive Committee, and that she would be co-chairing with an associate professor from the med school. As co-chairs, they will be finalizing agenda points and meeting regularly with the rest of the commission.
• Pre-Professional and Alumni Relations Representative Lucas Schuermann discussed the separation of undergraduate and graduate careers fairs. The first undergrad career fair is on September 25th, and a SEAS career fair will be on October 23rd. Students can now download a Columbia Career Fair app on the App Store or the Google Play Store.
• The Class of 2016 council has been working to make senior year more fun for engineers, and they are currently organizing the first Lerner Pub, which will happen in October, and a Career Kick-Off workshop, which is taking place this upcoming Friday from 1:00-2:30 pm. They will also have Vineyard Vines ties and scarves for seniors this upcoming Thursday, and they are hoping to bring back senior sweaters and are currently in talks with a distributor.
• The Class of 2017 council was excited to announce that they are planning a study break in October called “Pumpkin Everything.”
• Other than discussing the changes to Art of Engineering, the Class of 2018 council said that it would be working on a celebration for major declaration in October.

Image via ShutterStock.