New CCSC Bureau Chief Avery Baumel recaps CCSC’s Halloweekend meeting.

Welcome back to your regular CCSC coverage! This week, CCSC met, presented updates, introduced themselves with their Halloween costumes (my favorite: “sexy CUEMS”), referenced many acronyms that I immediately Googled (learning as we go!) and held an appointment process for the VP Equity position. 

Since this was the first CCSC meeting with the new Class of 2027 CCSC representatives, Bwog spoke to some of the new members to introduce them to the Barnumbia community! The following has been edited for clarity.

Avery Baumel (Bwog): Please introduce yourself: name, position, hometown, major, activities… anything goes!

  • Arvin Kim: I’m Arvin Kim and I’m excited to serve as Class President for the Class of 2027! I’m from Bethesda, Maryland and I’m planning on majoring in Political Science. I’m also writing for the Columbia Political Review this year.
  • Tomás Thor Fernández Idunnarson: Hello everybody, my name is Tomás Thor Fernández Idunnarson and I am the Vice President for CC 2027. I am leaning towards Philosophy or Psychology as a major but overall keeping an open mind to anything.
  • Maurice Williams: Hey! My name is Maurice Williams and I am a Freshman Class Representative. I’m from downtown Jersey City, New Jersey, right across the water from lower Manhattan! I am a double Economics and Political Science major, and currently also serve on the Carman Hall Council as the Vice President for Advocacy. 
  • Arop Arop: Hey! My name is Arop Arop and I am a Freshman Class Representative. Here at Columbia, I plan on going into the field of Financial Economics and Foreign Affairs. I was born in Dallas, Texas, and have been in the Dallas-Fort Worth area my entire life! On campus, I am still exploring what to get involved with, but I am currently in the RUF group and the BSA group! 

Bwog: Why did you decide to run for CCSC?

  • AK: Our voices need to be represented in decisions made about our education. I ran for CCSC to fight for students and to do my part in improving the Columbia College experience by bridging the gap between administration decision-making and student interests.
  • TF: It makes me so grateful to reflect on sixth-grade me, new to the United States from Barcelona, overwhelmed with anxiety and terror about the future, being where I am today. One of my priorities in life has always been to ensure that the well-being of those around me is maximized, and joining student council is the best way to exercise this. 
  • MW: I am passionate about group work; getting projects done with a team is something I truly enjoy. I’m also a very social person, and love meeting new people. Running for student council allowed me to marry these passions while also allowing me to become more involved in the community. We have so much going on at Columbia, and I’m excited to both make these events more known to students and to expand these options.
  • AA: I decided to run for CCSC because It was an opportunity to do something different. I have always enjoyed serving other’s interests and working on making my community a better place for everyone involved. I think it is important to create a voice that others are willing to put into perspective for the collective good. 

Bwog: What’s one goal or policy initiative you have for your term, or what’s something you’ll bring to CCSC?

  • AK: [According to the CC website,] “The CC-GS Committee on Instruction has determined that attendance in and of itself should not be graded and weighted in the final grade of the semester,” but we know this isn’t what always happens. Working with the rest of CCSC, I plan to advocate for consistent implementation of this policy to make sure that students are not losing credit for absences. 
  • TI: I am lucky to be able to represent my fellow peers at such a wide scale, and the trust they have given me by electing me only further motivates me to be my best. I was raised by an Icelandic mother and an Argentinian father while simultaneously growing up in Spain. I have first-hand seen how different perspectives influence an environment, and the beauty and power of these multi-crossing aspects of thinking is something I want to bring into the council.
  • MW: One of my party’s policies that we hoped to implement if elected was providing students with access to therapy dogs. This resource is something I was lucky enough to have in high school, thanks to student council, and I can’t wait to work towards bringing it to Columbia!
  • AA: As part of my role as representative, one policy that I plan on trying to implement is standardizing the attendance policy. I plan on working with CC admins to standardize attendance blind grading policies so students do not lose credit based on absence. I believe that your academic ability and performance should majorly affect your grade, not your attendance. 

Bwog: Personality questions! Favorite study spot, coffee order, and if you were a plant, what plant would you be?

  • AK: Butler Library; an iced Americano; a tree.
  • TI: Controversial opinion, my dorm, Avery library, or a classic Butler Library main floor; a monstrous caramel iced latte with 4 extra pumps of caramel (essentially, I don’t like coffee); if you consider a palm tree a plant, I am a palm tree. 
  • MW: Avery Library; chai latte; an old redwood. 
  • AA: Multi-cultural and affairs lounge and room in Lerner, John Jay Lounge, our men’s basketball lounge, or the Wallach floor lounges; I do not drink coffee, so my favorite tea order (DutchBros) is an iced chai strawberry horchata extra sweet, low ice, with creamer; a bluebonnet. 

(Bwog would here like to note that we do consider a palm tree a plant. Bwog would also like to note that a whole 75% of the freshmen representatives picked trees as their plant, which is slightly perplexing.)

I’m very excited to see how these freshmen and their colleague, Class of 2027 Representative Alexa Murat, CC ‘27, shape CCSC. I would also like to say that I greatly appreciate their collective love of Avery Library!

Back to the actual meeting recap: Many of the updates this week surrounded new events being planned for each class year. The sophomores are working on a fall sophomore night, and Class of 2026 President Sam Cano Cabrera, CC ‘26, and other members of the sophomore council said they have been in ongoing conversations about the location and music. Class of 2025 President Rohan Soni, CC ‘25, presented updates on the Fall Fest junior fall event, including the interesting news that Hungarian Pastry Shop said they would not cater hot cider or hot chocolate but did propose catering hot water at a discounted price…? So, the juniors plan to use Columbia Dining catering. They are also talking to Risk Management about inflatables! 

The senior council has several events in the works, including a welcome back event after winter break at Woolman Rink that Class of 2024 Representative James Bole Pan, CC ‘24, spoke about. Class of 2024 President Priya Chainani, CC ‘24, also mentioned plans for another Lerner Pub event after Tree Lighting, following the success of the first one. Finally, Class of 2024 Representative Jackson Weinberger, CC ‘24, brought up ongoing conversations over the Class Day speaker (at this point, people jokingly shouted out Timothée Chalamet and Jake Gyllenhaal as potential ideas). 

General updates also came from members across different committees. Important information included:

  • Several members spoke (and cheered) about the success of Slate on Thursday. Apparently surprise drag queens and aerialists made appearances? That sounds amazing. 
  • President Tejasri Vijayakumar, CC ‘24, has been in conversation with Facilities over the gates (!!) and terrace seating at John Jay. Vijayakumar also briefly mentioned changes to the registration process that happened at this week’s Housing Advisory Committee meeting (including a vote to no longer accept odd-numbered housing groups?). 
  • VP Campus Life Anand Chitnis, CC ‘25, worked on Tree Lighting this week with the Campus Life committee. An application for performance groups was sent out, which will be limited to acapella and Columbia Pops. Chitnis said Pops’ performance is intended to solve the issue last year where the trees were lit early.
  • Transfer Representative Andrew Yang, CC ‘25, is working on starting a club for transfer students. (I am a transfer student, so I’m very excited about this!)
  • VP Finance Mariam Jallow, CC ‘25, met with the Joint Council Finance Committee this week. She reported working through the process of distributing leftover Metro Cards from last year, since the summer’s fare change has created a potential obstacle.
  • Alumni Affairs Representative Sophie Gorup, CC ‘24, is in the process of setting up more informal ways for students to meet alumni, as well as potential lifestyle learning events for seniors, like how to find an apartment.
  • FGLI Representative Denizcan Ozdemir, CC ‘25, is planning a FGLI event for December 9th, and spoke with the ESC FGLI representative and other campus officials this week to work on that. 

After updates ended, the appointment process for the VP Equity position began. This position is in its second year at CCSC and is part of the executive board. Two potential candidates for the position each had three minutes to speak, followed by four minutes of Q&A, concluded by deliberation and a vote. This portion of the meeting is closed to outside members to maintain confidentiality and allow council members to deliberate freely, so this is where I departed. Results on the vote are forthcoming.

I’ll be back with more CCSC updates after fall break!

CCSC has open meetings every Sunday from 8-9:30 PM in the Lerner Satow Room.

Lerner via Bwarchives.