A possible look at the upcoming GS Donuts Celebration.

For a brief change in pace, staff writer Zöe Sottile made her way to the Satow Room at 8:00 pm for General Studies Student Council. 

This week, GSSC’s main priorities were evaluating nominees for a few representative positions as well as the upcoming GS Gala. As someone who has previously covered ESC meetings, I was surprised by how many differences in how GSSC and ESC are run. GSSC felt significantly more relaxed – the meeting started twenty minutes after it nominally began, and there were many more members of the audience than at ESC.

Meet The Nominees

GSSC dedicated the first part of its meeting to hearing from the nominees for a couple student representative positions. Rachel Bartlett made her case for Veteran Representative. She’s a first-year in GS who has been in the Marine Corps for eight years and is passionate about community outreach and development.

Both Amy Faskus and Dan Burkhardt are nominees for GSSC’s new election commission. Since this is a new internal committee, it’s unclear what exactly the commission will look like and these nominees will likely have significant power to shape and guide the new elections process. Amy is a senior theater major who discussed her previous leadership experience in clubs. Dan is a senior studying information science who has facilitated the elections for MilVets for the past two years.

Finally, Irene Ku is a nominee for the new position of Dual-BA representative. Irene is in her final ear of the dual degree program with City University of Hong Kong. Her main concern is that dual-degree programs, who arrive as juniors, don’t feel like they get enough career development and information about job opportunities. She wants to host events with dual degree alumni to help alleviate this problem.

VP Policy Raisa Flor

VP Policy Raisa Flor offered a few updates on her team’s developments. They are soon rolling out a survey about the beginning of semester assistance fund, so look out for that, GS students. Additionally, with turnover happening soon, she encourages every committee to document everything they did this semester in the aim of promoting institutional memory and helping next year’s GSSC get started.

Treasurer

The treasurer discussed his ongoing efforts to reconcile last year’s budgets. He also introduced the new system for tracking invoices he’s developed. He opened a motion to allocate $100 from the first-year committee budget to their GS Donut Celebration, which as passed.

Other Updates

  • GSSC is holding a fundraiser at Chipotle for the Columbia Food Bank. In the words of one GSSC member, “Get a burrito, even though it’s like eating a soft human arm.”
  • This year’s GS Gala’s theme will be Into The Woods, and it’s happening on April 21st at Guastavino’s. Tickets go on sale March 21st for $70.
  • The GS Donut Celebration, an event planned by the GSSC First-Year Committee, is happening on Friday, March 23rd, at around 1 pm.
  • Tickets for the MilVets Ball are on sale; GSSC has ten subsidized tickets for students with financial need.
  • GSSC’s student leadership nominations are due March 9th at 5 pm.

Image via Max Pixel.