Senior Executive Vice President Robert Kasdin Visits CCSC

“You’d be shocked at how isolating Low Library is,” Senior Executive Vice President Robert Kasdin said at a recent Columbia College Student Council meeting.

“You should set up a Twitter account,” CCSC President George Krebs, CC ’09, replied.

And so Kasdin, of the University’s central administration, ventured out from Low on Sunday for an annual visit to the Council, one intended to boost the working relationship with the administration. But before hearing student suggestions for the College, Kasdin addressed University finances. He stressed that Columbia was relatively well-off financially compared to some of its peer institutions, though he did admit that there may be more difficulties this year in carving out the spring budget, particularly in defining where financial priorities lie.

“I worry a lot about the senior class,” Kasdin said of the difficulties students would face in navigating the job market upon graduation. “It’s a little more complicated right now.”

But space demands, advising, financial aid, and a desire for better campus cohesion were on the minds of council members. Students called for increased access to space in graduate schools and greater assistance for student groups with smaller budgets, some of which have experienced difficulties in reserving rooms for activities. With the Barnard student center and the future sixth floor Lerner advising center still under construction, members said that student space was lacking. Although Kasdin mentioned that he was under the impression that Lerner Six was “going well,” other administrators have said that the project may be several years from completion.

Kasdin also said that even after the construction of new University buildings in Manhattanville, the Morningside Heights campus would remain the focal point of undergraduate life. It is unlikely that there will be dorms in the extended campus, he said, as the first major projects will be devoted to graduate research programs.

The fate of the Portal project—an online consolidated source for across-the-board student information—still seemed uncertain, with preliminary cost estimates exceeding $75,000. “It’s really worth sitting down and crunching the numbers,” Kasdin said, questioning whether designing a new Web site for the Portal would be a good use of time in the remaining days of the semester.

Still, despite Kasdin’s worries for graduating seniors, he said he saw college as a “magical period” for students. While Kasdin said that many of the critiques council members had of Columbia were not issues he had direct control over, he encouraged the students to seek out college deans for help making day-to-day improvements.

No word on whether a Low Library Twitter account has been set up.