ESC Bureau Chief Finn Klauber reports on this week’s meeting.

Engineering Student Council (ESC) met last night for their first post-Spring Break meeting. Thankfully, the session was short and simple, consisting almost entirely of position and class council updates.

Engineering Club Mailing List

A concern of ESC over the years has been the efficacy of communication with community groups and organizations. The discussion section of the meeting yesterday addressed a potential solution to this issue: a prototyped club mailing list hosted by ESC through Google Docs. With the use of email plugins, this mailing list should serve as a “more centralized place” for everyone on campus (not exclusively ESC) to find and use contact information for various clubs.

Executive Board Updates

• The ESC President reported on the first programming board meeting. The programming board, if you don’t recall, was instituted to create new campus traditions and events, particularly between CC and SEAS. The board is apparently attempting to hold their first event this year, though they do not know how feasible that will be.
• VP Policy Balogun is meeting with Environmental Stewardship today to talk about their work on the University Sustainability Plan—a new version of which will be released next year. Apparently, there is some talk about “fitting carbon neutrality” into the plan.
• Tampons and pads were officially placed in 19 bathrooms on the Morningside Heights campus over Spring Break. The plan is to let the program continue for a bit before assessing its success and planning any expansions. There apparently is some difficulty with extending the pilot program to CUMC as the Washington Heights campus has a different Facilities team than Morningside Heights.

Position Updates

• Boat cruise tickets for seniors are now on sale, with the event taking place on April 3rd from 6:30 to 9:30 PM. Junior boat cruise tickets for the Class of 2020’s April 11th event will “go live soon.”
• The Disability Representative is meeting with the Office of Disability Services to discuss the problems disabled students may have with Low Steps, in particular. The elevator to Low is essentially hidden with very little signage, and the ESC representative plans to increase awareness about the elevator using signage.
• The same representative is also meeting with the Student Health Advisory Committee to discuss the ridiculously terrible state of Columbia Health—though only in regard to scheduling and appointments. In a tale that every Columbia student has heard before, the representative described John Jay Medical Service’s complete inability to actually connect to students with at-risk health—nobody answered at John Jay (despite the call occurring within working hours) and he was redirected to Public Safety, who could neither help him nor explain why he could not speak to an actual Medical Services employee. There is “better healthcare at a high school,” as the representative put it, and Columbia students should not be paying $150 to $200 to have to go to CityMD on Broadway to actually receive treatment.

VVashington Heights via Flickr