Edwards wins General Studies council presidency

As General Studies Student Council election results came in this weekend, newly-elected leaders pointed to what may be a historic year for student government—one in which all four councils will be led by female presidents.

Katherine Edwards, current GSSC vice president of communications, won with 212 votes, and Alfred Davis, who serves on the Activities Board at Columbia, garnered 125 votes. With a combined total of 337 votes, the election marked another year of relatively low turnout for candidates listed on the ballot. While GSSC elections have not drawn many students to the polls in recent years, this year there were also technical glitches that delayed voting as well as a proliferation of write-in candidates.

Elections Commission member Emily Mousseau-Douglas said last week that delays were due to a technological issue with the web vendor that the dean’s office uses to set up the online polling.

Columbia College Student Council president-elect Sue Yang, CC ’10, said in an e-mail that she believed this was the first year that all four class councils were to be headed by women—the Engineering Student Council will be led by Whitney Green, CC ‘10, and Barnard’s Student Government Association will be led by Katie Palillo, BC ‘10.

Edwards said that she saw the top three priorities for next year’s GSSC as improved financial aid for General Studies students, more housing, and the distribution of Latin diplomas to GS students, whose diplomas, unlike their Columbia College and School of Engineering and Applied Science counterparts, are printed in English.

General Studies Dean Peter Awn “has mentioned they’re trying to do a hybrid [financial aid] model between need-based and merit-based,” Edwards said. While a large cross-section of the student body is currently on financial aid, it is often not enough to relieve the financial burden placed on students who fund their own education, and many are forced to turn to expensive private loans.

Edwards also noted that finding housing has become increasingly difficult for GS students, as those living in buildings like Nussbaum are being encouraged to find other residences, and the school seems to be pushing housing in the Bronx. While the accommodations are said to be attractive, the uptown location, especially with a pending subway fare hike and service cuts, could make for a difficult commute.

Edwards said GSSC would encourage the administration to shift its focus to Ph.D. students who could potentially move uptown instead.

As for Latin diplomas, Edwards said she thinks the council is “closer than ever” and would continue to appeal to current students and alumni to promote circulating petitions. Edwards said she is prepared to hold fundraising drives to help bankroll the initiative.

Scott Jurkowski, a write-in candidate for vice president of policy who collected 50 votes—21 more than his write-in opponent Jenny Chong—called Latin diplomas a lower priority than pushing for GS equality with CC. While finally nabbing the diplomas would be a tangible goal, Jurkowski said, leveling the playing field for GS and CC students—such as gaining greater access for GS students to required Core classes—is more pressing.

“When you make progress in those areas, it will translate into progress in other areas,” Jurkowski said.

This is Jurkowski’s first involvement with the council, although he noted that his counterpart at CCSC, vice president of policy-elect Sarah Weiss, CC ’10, was the first Columbia College student he ever met back in December 2007, before he had moved to New York and started classes.

“Getting people to take part in much more complex and removed initiatives is going to be difficult,” Jurkowski said. “But if we make it a point to project some sort of level of achievement,” more people may display the same enthusiasm they have for the Latin diplomas.

In one of the more distinct victories, current social chair Hannah Kim won for vice president of student life with 220 votes over opponent Chin Kim, who received 47 votes. Incidentally, more students seemed to vote in the vice president of finance elections than the student body president elections, where Jacqueline Thong was victorious over Allen Settle by a margin of 236 votes to 106. Settle also ran for the executive board last year.

University Senator Paige Lampkin, who was running as a write-in candidate, lost her bid for re-election to Paul Zachary. Zachary stated in his platform that he thought his time working on the Barack Obama campaign would be useful in navigating the political and communicative responsibilities of student senators.

Many of the positions on the council remain unfilled. The elections produced no winner for the alumni affairs or student services representative positions, nor for senior class vice president or sophomore class president or vice president.