CASA endorsed by CCSC

CCSC’s meeting makes the most of every minute covering bylaws, more bylaws, and the CASA bill.

Abby Porter, VP of Policy, introduced the CASA (Campus Accountability and Safety Act) to the CCSC’s meeting. CASA is a pending bill on the House and Senate introduced in 2015 by Senator Claire McCaskill. The bill aims to reform the way campus sexual violence is currently addressed under Title IX law, since most schools don’t adhere to it and do not have the proper mechanisms to enforce it. Under CASA, universities are required to publish sexual assault statistics, provide sexual assault victims with a counselor, and give amnesty to students for other misconduct. The bill also gives the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights the ability to fine schools who are not following CASA procedures up to 1% of their operating budget. With total support from CCSC, Columbia officially endorses the bill, through the Student Leadership Alliance.

Moving into bylaws, Porter introduced the edits done in the past weeks.

• A more accurate description of positions and responsibilities, especially for Policy, Student Services, and Sandwich Ambassador.
• Jordana Narin, Class of 2017 and Judicial Board President, reviewed the edits done on the Judicial Board’s description, which after some debate on the floor was decided to be a checks and balances for the process and is still made up from senior members of CCSC.
• Committee appointment procedures will be made upon the discretion of the Academic Affairs Committee.

Lastly, president Nicole Allicock introduced the Elections Board Bylaws. After discussing various articles, VP of Student Life Nathan Rosin pointed out some inconsistencies in the bylaws, which said that CCSC was able to edit the bylaws and later on said that editing of the bylaws was a power of the Columbia Elections Board (CEB), and he also brought up inconsistencies between the bylaws and the elections rules. The discussion then went into making a forum to suggest edits for the CEB, but ended when VP of Communications Josh Sudman said that bylaws needed to be amended, but the moment for that would be after a careful revision of both bylaws and rules. With that, Allicock declared the subject exhausted, saying that the integrity of the bylaws was questionable as well.

As for this week’s updates:

Class of 2019: As part of the Healthy Living Initiative, the Class of 2019 is having a Bagel Run on Saturday at 10:30, and upon finishing, runners will receive a free pass for a SoulCycle class.

Class of 2018: The Office of Disability Services will now email students with the location of their exams, instead of them having to arrive to the office to be placed.

Senate: They will host the first meeting of the IGB (Internal Governing Board) this week and will go over the constitutional revisions.

Sandwich Ambassador: Joseph Villafane, newly elected ambassador, will seek to re-vindicate the position.

Pre-professional Representative: Dave Mendelson is looking for a way, either through fundraising or donations, to re-supply Columbia’s clothing closet, which provides students with formal outfits for job interviews.

Policy VP: Porter talked with Dean Valentini about making the Core more accessible and about passing the Food Bank proposal.

Communications: Web page should be up and running by next week (probably), and apparently the changes made will make it easier to maintain and update in the future. Potentially, there’ll be a webpage launch party.

Additionally, a survey that covers student workers’ late paychecks will be sent as a joint effort of CCSC and Student Worker Solidarity. CCSC will do most of the analysis on it.

Finally, Homecoming is just around the corner, beginning with Spirit Week on the 17th of this month!

Making progress via Wesleying