Bwog’s own Sean Zimmermann reports from last night’s meeting.
In the grand tradition of last year’s CCSC presidential election, this year’s Freshman ESC election is one of the most uncompetitive in recent memory. Only 5 students are running, and both Presidential candidate Mary Byers and the Vice Presidential candidate Tim Qin, (both of the Fu Fighters Party) are running uncontested. Voting ends at 8 PM Wednesday, and is available here.
GSSC liaison Nathan Levick reported that GS students are complaining that their diplomas are in English when Columbia and Barnard both have their diplomas in Latin. The news brought a chorus of “not again” from the council, especially when announced that it appears this will be one of the primary focuses of the GS student council this year.
Zak Accuradi from Green Umbrella — an organization that coordinates between the different campus environmental groups and the administration — spoke during the meeting about CCSC’s decision to approve a new “sustainability advisor” position on their council, and proposed that a similar position be created on ESC. Though the council encouraged the group to send representatives to council meetings (which are open), they ultimately decided against creating a new position.
VP Policy Kelly Chen announced that CUIT is proposing adding printers under the Mudd screens (in the lobby), to address concerns that there are no 24-hour printers in Mudd. As a possible alternative, they are also looking into extending the Mudd computer lab hours (though the lab would still not be 24-hours).
Senator Rajat Roy discussed setting up an email forwarding system for alumni, so student would be able to keep their UNI-based email addresses, which would forward email to a personal address. Both Harvard and Cornell have similar systems already established, although sadly their systems wouldn’t preserve the discounts you get with a .edu address.
President Whitney Green outlined her new “Rock Star” initiative; the council needs to be much more proactive in dealing with engineering student groups. She wants the council both to collaborate with student groups on events, and to have council members go out and attend various club meetings to help foster community. School spirit, ahoy.
CCSC liaison Jennifer Vettel expressed CCSC’s desire to work with SGB and ABC to institute a one-flyer-per-bulletin-board rule, and to encourage clubs to find less wasteful ways of getting their messages our to students. They acknowledge this would be difficult to enforce, and therefore would be more of a campaign to change club mindset rather than create a strict rule. Perhaps the campaign could start with some flyering?
17 Comments
@how is esc any different no one ever runs opposed for president
@fuff GS/Barnard, nice troll. GS = Columbia University. Suck it.
@cait Zak Accuardi RULES!!!
*at least get the names right, BWOG
@GS '11 The GSSC has to bring it up because at the end of last school year the students advocating the switch to Latin were informed that they had to show a sustained interest in Latin diplomas in order for anything to change. It’s as tiresome for us as it is for the rest of the student councils.
@GS'10 I am so bored with GSSC. No one cares about them except themselves, in fact no one even knows who they are except for themselves. There is no attempt to find out what we GSers need or want. All they do is have their stupid meetings, retreats, and cozy up to the Deans. Never have so few done so little.
@Anonymous Hi. This will seem very late to most, but I am part of GSSC and I agree with the feelings that #11 has – to an extent. I have recently joined the board and am trying to figure out ways to incorporate the voice of students into our meetings. GSSC does spend more than three/fourths of its time discussing policy issues that benefit students, events to help students meet each other and feel like a community and meeting with Dean’s to discuss issues like Financial Aid and Housing which are real concerns to the student body. It seems repeat to say it, but if you would vocalize to the board or even to myself about what you think we can do to make you feel like this is about you and the student body I would welcome the communication. I and a few others may be different than those you have heard rumored in the past on GSSC. I can tell you this, those of us like me are not few on your new GSSC board and we only do this if it can make a difference to the student body. If it does not do that, it is a waste of my time even though I enjoy it. Your Student Life, Delegate-at-Large, Trisha Gill
@rushmore one of the greatest movies ever made!!!
@2 for 2 on ESC posts fail, bwog, fail.
Jennifer VETTED?!
way to fact check.
@ALERT I dunno if Raj knew about the CAA address, but 1 year after you graduate, you lose your @columbia.edu forever – so autoforwarding doesn’t work anymore.
In other words, if you forget to tell someone that your columbia.edu e-mail address is now defunct, they’ll never know…
@by 1 year do you mean forever? “All Columbia degree-holders are eligible for free, lifelong e-mail forwarding” http://alumni.columbia.edu/access/s2_2c.html
@ALERT OOH! Thank you sir, I did not know this; I know there definitely are people who still e-mail me at my old UNI.
Thank you again! (Btw, Raj, I’m not entirely sure, but I don’t think CUIT reminds us about the e-mail fwding option – they do tell us about the CAA address when it’s almost a year past)
@well 1) What’s wrong with GS getting it’s diplomas printed in Latin? They’re literally getting the same degree as CC students – a BA from the faculty of Arts & Sciences of Columbia University.
2) Either you misheard Rajat, or he didn’t bother reading the Alumni website (See “E-mail Forwarding”): http://alumni.columbia.edu/access/s2_2.html
@GS / Barnard GS / Barnard –> not part of Columbia. Thanks.
@well 1) Chalk one up to ignorance.
Barnard is technically not part of Columbia. Correct.
But under what deranged logic is GS not part of Columbia? Because the Office of Planning and Institutional Research seems to disagree with you: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/opir/abstract/students.html
2) Lifetime email addresses/accounts were proposed back in 2003-2004, and came to fruition thanks to google apps + a functional umbrella alumni organization (the CAA). http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ccsc/resolutions/2003-2004/lifetime%20email%20resolution.pdf
@Wrong. Thanks. Barnard = not a part of Columbia. And yet I still have to take language classes there b/c Columbia doesn’t offer enough.
@you poor thing being forced to take classes at barnard.
@Rajat Roy You’re right, we get a CAA account or Autoforward (if we ask for it). What I’m looking at is just to avoid that entirely and so I can always have emails sent to rbr2110@columbia.edu
Why get a CAA account when you can use the same client we have all grown accustomed to using (of course we’d still encourage people to use auto-forward because then they’d actually see emails sent to them)?
A quick look shows that the alumni population at Columbia grows by a constant number per year. But the ability to store information increases much faster. Basically, in 5 years CUIT *should* be way ahead of the curve in storing and accessing email so why should we give up our accounts to begin with?
This is just an idea. It simplifies matters and helps us keep in contact.
Some of our friends may not remember to set up a CAA email (and then email everyone letting them know they have a CAA account) or set up autoforwarding. This gives them a very simple alternative: do nothing.
If you agree or even disagree please send me an email at rbr2110. at. columbia dot edu to let me know your opinions
PS – thanks #6. Previous senators had sent me that pdf in paper form. It’s good to have an electronic copy.