CU EMS seeks new space in Broadway

A student-run group that provides emergency medical care to the Morningside Heights campus is pushing for new headquarters, but a governing board that doles out funds may stand in its way.

The Columbia University EMS, which has around 45 active members and responds to over 800 emergency calls per year, is currently housed in the basement of first-year dorm Carman—a space that organizers say is no longer sufficient for their operations.

The organization, previously called the Columbia Area Volunteer Ambulance, has proposed to move into space in the Broadway dorm, which the Center for Student Advising recently vacated.

The move has the backing of the Columbia College Student Council, Engineering Student Council, General Studies Student Council, and Student Governing Board, top administrators, and a petition that’s been signed by nearly 1,700 students, Alex Harstrick, CC ’12 and the director-elect of CAVA, said.

But the student-run Activities Board at Columbia—which funds a range of student groups on campus—voted last week to reject the proposal, which could put a wrench in the plan.
The decision will ultimately fall on the desk of Scott Wright, vice president of campus services, who said in an interview that he will take the concerns of the lone dissenting governing board very seriously.

Wright, who said that he will need to speak to groups about their concerns and iron out any conflicts before making a decision, said, “ABC represents about 200 groups on campus, so that’s a pretty big constituency.”

OUTGROWING CARMAN

In CAVA’s current headquarters, couches and a set of bunk beds line the walls, and members often sleep during their 12-hour shifts. Members have said they would like separate gender sleeping arrangements, for personal ease and for some students, religious reasons.

“It’s just uncomfortable when two people are on the same couch and your heads are touching or your feet are touching,” said Rachel Crosswell, CC ’10 and an EMT for CAVA for three years.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, after several of the EMTs had pulled all-nighters seeing to four different calls, a piano melody sounded in their sleeping space from an adjacent music practice room in Carman.

Andrew Richardson, a first-year in the School of International and Public Affairs, said he looks forward to getting new, silent neighbors.

“We enjoy the jazz band if they’re soft—maybe at 4 p.m.—but not so much at 9 p.m., when they’re rocking out hard on the drums,” he said, adding that many members like to nap during the day, which is no easy feat during a band’s practice session.

A lack of physical space has also been a major concern for some CAVA members, who said they are struggling to store all the necessary equipment and hold all their meetings on top of all their other uses for the headquarters.

“We’re sort of swimming in supplies,” Harstrick said.

The group said they’re concerned, too, about poor cell-phone reception in the basement of Carman.

There have been several instances this year where the radio system CAVA uses to communicate with Public Safety has been spotty because of the reception, causing them to miss calls or head out later than needed, some complained. Sam Seward, the director of Medical Services, said this has not led to any poor health outcomes, but he said he sees why it irks CAVA members.

“Sometimes they can’t quite hear the radio, so they have to run upstairs and check with the public safety officer at the desk and then run back downstairs and it tacks on a little extra time,” he said.

“Seconds do matter and I think they worry about it as much as anybody does.”

A NEW OPTION

Several years ago, when Advising decided it would be moving into renovated space on the fourth floor of Lerner, the deans at the time agreed to open their vacated rooms on the first floor of Broadway to meeting space for student groups, Wright said.

CSA left in September, and Harstrick said he soon began speaking with administrators and councils about acquiring the space.

But because CAVA is not a student group, but a state-sponsored EMT service that operates in conjunction with Health Services, it cannot request to be calendered into the space by University Event Management, as other groups do. Harstrick said the group was left to pursue other strategies to acquire the new headquarters.

Earlier this month, Harstrick circulated a proposal around the various governing boards asking for their approval of a move into two rooms, 102 and 103, on the first floor of Broadway.

The School of General Studies Student Council and Engineering Student Council voted unanimously to give CAVA both spaces, while CCSC voted unanimously to give them 103, but tabled discussion of 102, a 100 square-foot meeting room that fits a table for four. The Student Governing Board, which provides funds for groups including religious and political ones, voted to give CAVA 103, but not 102.

CAVA has said they can move the move to Broadway quickly and give their space—about 390 square feet—to meeting space for student groups.

Harstrick added that at 656 square feet, room 103 will give them gender-segregated sleeping rooms, a storage room that will also double as a meeting room, and ample space for further storage and EMT training, something they weren’t able to do this semester due to lack of space.

“All of our core members put in so much work,” he said of the petition. “We all kinda put the hammer down on that and did a very good job of being proactive.”

COMPETING INTERESTS?

In a close vote, ABC’s board rejected the proposal to move to Broadway 9-7, said Beezly Kiernan, CC ’11 and the president of ABC.

“Most of us on ABC agree that the move won’t really benefit student groups and some believe that CU-EMS’ needs are not significant enough to warrant losing such a large space as Broadway 103,” he said, adding that ABC will not be able to discuss the matter further, since their schedule is full.

SGB and ABC both asked their constituent groups—about 250 together—to take a poll about how they felt about the issue. Kiernan said the response rate was low, with only about 20 groups responding and most of them in favor of giving CAVA the space.

Ryan Cho, CC ’13 and a representative of both CCSC and ABC who voted to give CU-EMS the space, said his peers believed CAVA’s claims about Carman were exaggerated and didn’t think it appropriate to give one student organization sole access over a space twice the size of the space they were vacating.

“Overall, I agreed with some of these points but also believe that CU-EMS has been a group that has been an incredible asset to the Columbia Community and the greater Morningside Heights neighborhood and that they do deserve the space in Broadway,” Cho said in an email.

Wright, who said he applauds members of CAVA for running a thorough campaign, said he wants to be sure student groups would support the exchange.

“At no point did the students say we want to move CAVA. CAVA said we want to move and we’ll show you the students support this,” he said. “Those are two completely different processes.”

Wright said he will meet with both groups to try and work out an agreement, adding that moving CAVA will only be a problem if other student groups request the space in Broadway during UEM pre-calendering.

He won’t find out for a few more weeks, though Hastrick said he doesn’t think anyone has requested it yet.

If no one requests the space, Wright said, it’s possible that CAVA will get to move in January. But if others are interested, and they can’t work out an agreement with ABC to have the two exchange, Wright said he’ll likely table this discussion until next year.

Harstrick said he is grateful for ABC’s input and cooperation.

“ABC has been very good with accommodating us,” he said. “We just have competing interests.”

leah.greenbaum@columbiaspectator.com

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article stated that Alexander Harstrick is CC '11. He is actually CC '12. The article also misidentified the floor in Lerner that the Center for Student Advising recently moved into. Additionally, CCSC, ESC, and GSSC were incorrectly grouped together with SGB as governing boards rather than separately as student councils. Spectator regrets the errors.