All of us here at Bwog, when ESC faced yet another impeachment motion this week.

Every Tuesday, Bwog brings you a recap of the previous night’s Engineering Student Council (ESC) meeting. Deputy Editor Jenny Zhu stepped in to report on this week’s ESC meeting, which oversaw some classic ESC hits like Eweek plans, emergency contraception updates, and (e)mpeachment of the president.

President Aida Lu

After her meeting with Scott Wright, Facilities’ VP for Campus Services, President Lu introduced the plan to allow individual students to reserve rooms in campus spaces like Lerner and academic buildings, via University Event Management (UEM). Ideally, these rooms would be bookable for individuals or small groups of 5 to 10 people in the same way Butler study rooms are. She also let ESC know that since Lerner rooms were updated with new technology, the council has been charged for using the Satow Room’s projector, but members will probably be able to eventually just operate the projector “by themselves.” President Lu’s updates on her meeting with COI were kept off-the-record.

VP Policy Zoha Qamar

VP Qamar provided updates on the joint initiative she’s spearheading, alongside CCSC 2021 Rep Aja Isabel and CCSC 2020 Rep Danielle Resheff, to supply free pads and tampons in campus bathrooms and increase accessibility for those in need. As established at yesterday’s CCSC meeting, the initiative’s pilot program last year found that 30 products were being used a day, but Facilities argued for a less-accessible vending machine of menstrual products instead. VP Qamar urged ESC to sign and share a petition backing the original plan.VP Qamar also suggested rolling out the long-discussed emergency contraception vending machines in John Jay lobby, which wouldn’t require swipe access.

VP Student Life Ben Barton

VP Barton spent most of his discussion time breaking down the events of Engineering Week (Eweek), which is happening between February 19th – 22nd. Four main events, all of which include food, will constitute Eweek: first, a tower-building competition called “Morningside HEIGHTS.” Second, a trivia night revolving around a self-described “pretty sick Kahoot.” The last two events include a paint night and a wind-turbine building competition titled “Easy, Breezy, SEASy.” Barton also brought updates on the Columbia Elections Commission, a newly formed group that will consist of representatives from all councils, as well as some non-council members. The non-council member portion has already had 4 interested responses, which is a lot considering historical interest (or lack thereof) in overlooking elections processes.

Impeachment, Part 2

In the middle of the Professional Development Representative’s discussion topic, 2019 Representative Montana St. Pierre moved to impeach…the President of ESC, Aida Lu. Late last semester, Rep St. Pierre had also moved to impeach the then-VP Finance, who ended up resigning as he deemed it preferable to going through the constitutional process of ESC impeachment.

After a speechless six seconds, Lu recused herself from discussion. VP Qamar, first asking if the council “could just continue with the discussion topic,” began reading out the all-to-familiar constitutional process for impeachment. As stated in Article IV, Section 3 of the ESC Constitution, a special impeachment committee, comprising of one rep from each class council and two members from the E-Board, would be formed to investigate on what basis President Lu would be impeached. The council would then need a 2/3 majority vote to successfully impeach President Lu.

Under VP Qamar’s instruction, each class council then voted for one of its representatives to become part of this impeachment committee, with the 2019 council even going as far as playing nose-goes in order to decide who would take part in this task. Then, the discussion was moved to continue off-the-record after the public meeting ended.

As Bwog’s previous Bureau Chief Finn Klauber brought up when Rep St. Pierre had made a similarly sudden impeachment motion last semester, “Section IV.A.b states that ‘the executive board is expected to exercise proper judgment before calling a member for formal review,’ and Section IV.B.b.i. states that ‘the impeached member must be informed of the motion for impeachment.’”

Miscellaneous

• ESC website progress was delayed, but it should be going up very soon.
• As discussed by University Senator Izzet Kebudi, the Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing is looking for new members to apply. Kebudi also brought up the issue of ESC making a statement on graduate student unionization affairs.
• Applications for the Columbia Investment Fund, which offers to fund large purchases of capital that is intended to stay within student groups for at least 3 years, have opened up. The lower limit for these purchases is $2000.

Wtf Montana via Bwog Archives