The Council heard from Officer nominees and others at Tuesday night’s meeting.

After calling this week’s GSSC meeting to order, President Jane Jeong (GS’22) began with two opening remarks.

First, Jeong informed GSSC of a potential second round of CARES Act funding entitled HEERF. HEERF (the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund) is $13 million in federal aid open to Columbia University. The University must accept a minimum of $6 million, but Jeong hopes that the University accepts more, as the 44% of GS students who are Pell Grant recipients depend on this funding. Jeong noted that it was something to keep an eye on and note how much the University ultimately accepts.

Second, President Jeong announced the nomination of Louis Cheng for VP of Finance and Sydney Bowen for Equity and Inclusion Chair.

The Policy Officer had no major updates and neither did the Communications Officer, beyond noting that there would be upcoming events advertisement. Chief of Campus Life Sofia Trujillo announced new events for the Spring semester including class mixers and scavenger hunts hosted via Discord.

Next, the Council moved into speeches for the two nominees, beginning with Louis Cheng. A sophomore in data science, Cheng spoke about the joy the GS community brought and his desire to give back. Cheng formerly led finance management at a fire department in Singapore and hoped to bring his administrative and interpersonal experiences to GSSC.

Nominee for Equity and Inclusion Chair, Sydney Bowen, spoke next. As a transfer student, Bowen experienced educational environments where equity and inclusion had not been prioritized and wished to create policy informed by the concerns of the GS student body. 

With no standing business, the Council moved to the floor where Dual B.A./Joint Program Rep Nicholas Li vocalized concern over the one test per week Covid-19 testing maximum for GS students. It was brought up that this discrepancy may be because of housing status but that it would be an issue that the Council would look into.

No public comment was made so the Council moved into Executive Session to vote on the Officer appointments.

Meeting Minutes are available for Tuesday night’s session.

Earl Hall via Bwog Archives