USenate Addresses Economy’s Impact

Columbia University Senators addressed financial concerns, ranging from the economic downturn’s impact on the endowment to its impact on student loans, at a monthly plenary meeting on Friday.

The senate met to wrap up open agenda items, including the University’s conflict of interest policy, accounts payable problems, and the ongoing debate over the Reserve Officers Training Corps program, while also considering new challenges that have emerged in light of the recent financial meltdown.

President Lee Bollinger opened the meeting with a sober update on the University’s financial status, noting that the global financial crisis may affect Columbia’s budget and endowment.

He added that universities often weather recessions well, and said he wanted to sound neither “optimistic” nor “alarmist.”

That issue was put aside until the end of the meeting, when a Union Theological Seminary student said she had been unable to secure a loan to finance the rest of her master’s degree program.

Provost Alan Brinkley fielded questions from several senators, students, and professors over the University’s handling of financial aid amid the economic crisis.

The most pressing issue, Brinkley said, is the trouble international students face in securing loans. Most such loans require an American cosigner, a contact which many international students do not have.

Loans that do not require a cosigner were rare even before the credit crunch and are now virtually impossible to find. Citigroup supplied such loans almost exclusively until a few years ago, when they began cutting back.

“We can increase the amount of financial aid to students, but we don’t have the capacity to make up for the very large amount of money that is not coming in as loans,” Brinkley said. “I’m not very optimistic.”

Sharyn O’Halloran, a professor in the School of International and Public Affairs, mentioned a pilot program, organized through the School of Engineering and Applied Science, where alumni pool funds to guarantee loans for international students.

Moving on from the impact of the poor economy on Columbia, the subcommittee, reviewing a new policy on financial conflicts of interest, reported that there will be a public hearing in November on the standardization of the policy between the Morningside Campus and the Medical Center Campus on 168th Street.

University Senators Monica Quaintance, CC ’10, and Rajat Roy, SEAS ’10, said a survey is in the works to ask undergraduate students whether they would support the return of the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps to campus.

The Student Affairs Caucus is also planning town hall meetings—one at Columbia and another at Barnard—to provide students with more information on the history of the ROTC issue at Columbia.

The town halls are meant to eliminate the need for in-depth explanation in the survey itself, which organizers “want to present with as little baggage as possible,” Quaintance said.

The survey is scheduled for Nov. 17 and will be given only to undergraduate students, although senators are working to include the entire student body.

shane.ferro@columbiaspectator.com