Elections for two Columbia College seats in the University Senate start Monday, and incumbent senator Alex Frouman, CC ’12, is attempting to hold onto his position.
Competing candidates are Matthew Chou, CC ’14, Chris Canales, CC ’14, Steven Castellano, CC ’13, Dylan Lonergan, CC ’13, and Eduardo Santana, CC ’13.
Current senator Tim Lam, CC ’11, is not running for reelection, and the college’s third seat—held by Kenny Durell, CC ’12—is not up for reelection.
The 108-member senate, which has authority to craft policies that affect more than one school at Columbia, has passed two high-profile resolutions this academic year. Senators voted last semester to ban smoking within 20 feet of buildings on the Morningside Heights campus, and this semester passed a resolution in support of bringing the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps back to Columbia.
There will be a debate among these candidates on Sunday at 5:30 p.m. in Lerner Party Space, and the election runs through Wednesday evening.
ALEX FROUMAN
Frouman, the incumbent, was a member of the senate task force that gathered campus opinions on ROTC and was instrumental in crafting the 20-foot campus smoking ban—a compromise between those who wanted a full ban and those who wanted no ban at all.
“After my two years of service building valuable experience, institutional knowledge, and relationships, I am confident that I am a very qualified candidate who can get things done,” Frouman said.
Frouman said he has advocated for CourseWorks' successor, Sakai—although it has not yet been implemented—and established a pilot program among senators to test its performance and provide feedback on development. He also successfully pushed to allow students to reschedule December 23 exams and is currently working on a proposal to encourage schools to make course evaluations public.
He added that even though the senate often gets bogged down by “parliamentary procedures and competing interests,” he thinks it does important work.
“More power and responsibility to the senate means more ways for the student voice to be heard and effect change,” he said. “So I think the senate should always exercise more power when appropriate.”
CHRIS CANALES
Canales, too, said the senate does work that is important to students’ lives. He said he is running because he believes senators often do not listen to student voices.
“I have trouble standing by while important decisions about my experience at Columbia are made by people who don’t vote according to what their constituents want or at least weigh public opinion before coming to decisions,” he said.
If elected, Canales said he will vote based on a rough 70-30 principle—his vote would be determined about 70 percent by public opinion and about 30 percent by his own opinion.
While he did not want to make too many specific promises before listening to what students want, Canales said he would work to ensure “transparency in the administration’s decision about ROTC and the military’s presence on campus” and also push for cross-school swipe access for Barnard College, Teachers College, and the School of International and Public Affairs.
STEVEN CASTELLANO
Castellano aspires to influence the initiatives he saw forwarded to the senate during his time serving on the CCSC policy committee, like changes to the academic calendar and the release of course evaluations.
“My platform is centered around communicating with students and representing their concerns,” Castellano said, “rather than just my own in senate conversations.”
Castellano said that the three most important issues to address in the senate are creating more student space on campus, fostering a more environmentally-friendly Columbia, and changing the fall academic calendar so that finals end earlier.
He believes students would support a proposal in which the number of exam days is decreased with more exams scheduled each day.
Castellano said that the senate should do a better job of exercising its power, though he added that it should do so cautiously.
“Three Columbia College students on senate cannot fully represent the diverse views of the Columbia students,” he said. “I would be afraid of the senate exercising too much power in controversial circumstances without extensive discussion between faculty and students.”
MATTHEW CHOU
If he is elected, Chou said he wants to be a strong proponent for the student body’s voice to increase campus space for group use and push for inter-school swipe access.
“My motivation for running for senate is that Columbia University, as a decentralized, multi-faceted institution, needs a strong student voice in University-wide matters,” Chou said. “The relative disparity of the student population means that we risk not being able to communicate shared concerns.”
Chou added that the senate has the potential to affect University policies in a way that other campus governing bodies do not, and he said he would try to make that clear as a senator.
“My first and foremost goal would be to promote active communication about what the role of senate is and what the senate is doing,” Chou said. “Healthy dialogue would come first because, ultimately, I would be representative of the student body.”
DYLAN LONERGAN
Lonergan, who was a 2013 class representative on CCSC last year, praised the senate for soliciting student opinions before passing the ROTC resolution last week.
“Regardless of whether one supports the resolution or the proceedings of the task force, one has to consider the fact that the students were allowed participation in the process as opposed to the process at Harvard, where the president simply formally welcomed NROTC to its campus,” Lonergan said.
Lonergan was less supportive of the senate’s 20-foot smoking ban, which he said the senate has no way of enforcing.
In the wake of the controversial Manhattanville expansion, Lonergan said he would work to improve Columbia’s image among its neighbors and push to give space that is vacated on the Morningside campus to undergraduate schools.
“[The] newly vacated space ought not to go to private organizations and administrative offices,” he said. “It would seem fair that this space would go to undergraduates as study lounges, performance space, etc. This is our second chance to achieve the dream that Lerner was.”
EDUARDO SANTANA
Santana said that the senate faces a disconnect with the student body, and that this causes legislation like the ROTC resolution to be met with confusion and misunderstanding.
“I believe that our current senate has made great efforts to bridge this gap, and really seek out the concerns of our community, but I think that more can be done,” he said.
He also emphasized that it is important for a senator to bring passion and responsibility to the table.
“I love Columbia University,” Santana said. “I am so grateful for all that our University has to offer, and how amazing our community truly is. The time has come for me to step up and offer myself to our community as the friend and faithful representative that the opportunities as senator allow for.”
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