Managing Editor Zack Abrams checked the websites and Facebook pages and found that the meeting locations and times for the SEAS and GS undergraduate student councils were nowhere to be found. 

tl;dr: ESC meets at 9:30 pm on Mondays in the Lerner Satow room. GSSC meets at 8:15 pm on Tuesdays in the Lerner Satow room. The Satow room is on the fifth floor of Lerner; it’s the room with the big glass windows on the lower end (elevation-wise) of the floor.

Government transparency is the bedrock of a free society. And while most students never spare a thought for their student council beyond remarking at the terrible puns which candidates choose for their group titles, it’s important that students know where to go to yell at their elected representatives about a referendum on Israel every few years or so. Also, as Bwog’s (barely-managing) Managing Editor, it’s part of my job to help recruit Bureau Chiefs who cover the meetings of every student council every single week, and sometimes filling in when our staff can’t make a meeting. All of these circumstances necessitate knowing at which spot on the spacetime continuum these meetings take place.

Imagine my frustration, then, when the meeting times and locales for ESC and GSSC weren’t prominently displayed on their Facebook pages or websites. You’d have to know where to look: ESC off-handedly mentions the meeting time and place in the “Notes” section of their Facebook page; I have no idea what the Notes section of a Facebook page is. In addition, the link to ESC’s website present on their Facebook page doesn’t work and the site one can find by Googling “ESC Columbia” hasn’t been updated in two and a half years. C’mon, y’all, you’re supposed to be the good computer people.

GSSC likewise has no information immediately present on their website or Facebook page (maybe I’m missing it, but that still proves my point). I literally had to Slack our former GSSC Bureau Chief to find out when they meet. Maybe the information is disseminated in another, GS-friendly way, like through snail mail or pagers, that I’m not privy to. On their website is a “When We Meet” button… which is greyed out! The most delicious fruits are those just out of reach.

Props to CCSC and SGA for doing the bare minimum and making the meeting times available on their respective websites and Facebook pages. That’s great news for people who want to stop the spending of thousands of dollars on Patagonia… oh wait, no it’s not, because SGA didn’t tell anyone they were doing that.

In conclusion, if you’re trying to catch a surprise impeachment or three, now you know where to go. Because good journalism™ doesn’t just keep track of the government, it does its job. Or something.

Lerner, home of Satow via Bwog Archives