CCSC Candidates Vie for Student Group Endorsements in Hotly Contested Race

As Wednesday’s Columbia College Student Council elections approach, the two parties running neck-and-neck for executive board positions, Experience Columbia and Connect Columbia, have found student groups as split as students as to who to support.

Experience Columbia—led by presidential candidate and current junior class president George Krebs, CC ’09—leads in numbers, boasting 16 endorsements going into tomorrow’s election, including recent ones from the Organization of Pakistani Students, Everyone Allied Against Homophobia, Columbia Queer Alliance, and the College Democrats and College Republicans.

Connect Columbia, headed by current VP of Policy Alidad Damooei, CC ’09, has received nine endorsements, including, recently, that of the Political Science Students Association.

Both Krebs and Damooei said they were satisfied with the support their tickets have received.

Endorsements, Krebs said, are “both symbolic and substantively important, and it’s important to show that we have a broad base of support going into this election.” But he added that Experience Columbia had “consistently done better than them [Connect Columbia] in head-to-head endorsements.”

Connect Columbia VP of Funding candidate Jennifer Choi, CC ’09, refuted that claim, noting that many groups have declined to endorse either ticket.

Jonathan Backer, CC ’10 and media director for the College Democrats, said the central issue for the Democrats in choosing to endorse Experience Columbia was a commitment to activism.

Experience Columbia is “committed to taking stances on important issues,” Backer said. “We’re really glad, for example, to see a student council ticket that’s making Manhattanville [the University’s planned expansion] a centerpiece of their campaign.”

Backer emphasized that the Democrats “have no concerns about Alidad’s ticket. They’re not going to take activism a step back on this campus.”

Everyone Allied Against Homophobia secretary Bryan Reid, CC ’10, said their endorsement was partly due to the fact that Experience Columbia contacted EAAH and has reached out to the LGBT community.

“It shows a lot of support when someone’s able to be at our events,” Reid said. “What EAAH really liked about Experience Columbia was that they were really able to speak to our constituency and enable us to have power with the University.”

Like Backer, Reid said the endorsement is not a denunciation of Connect Columbia, and anticipated a healthy dialogue between CCSC and EAAH regardless of the election results.

Some endorsements have been more controversial. According to Krebs, the Korean Students Association endorsed Connect Columbia after ignoring meeting requests from Experience Columbia.

That endorsement “didn’t seem as evenhanded as we would have hoped,” Krebs said.
Krebs recently sent an inflammatory e-mail to KSA president Katie Han, CC ’09, implying that Han’s friendship with Choi had unfairly influenced the group’s decision.

“I find it completely inappropriate. If anything, I think he [Krebs] was trying to intimidate some of our supporters,” Damooei said of Krebs’ reaction. “I think George has been saying these things to make it look like we didn’t deserve the endorsements we got.”

“There were a lot of assumptions made about KSA endorsing us,” Choi said. “He [Krebs] offended KSA, and he offended me personally.”

Damooei said he received no response to an e-mail to the Arab Students Organization, which endorsed Experience Columbia. But Krebs said the situations are different because Damooei did not send the e-mail to ASO until after Experience Columbia had already met with the organization, whereas KSA had been contacted by Experience Columbia prior to meeting with Connect Columbia.

But despite the bickering, Damooei said, “What I think is the most important part of an endorsement isn’t the endorsement itself. It’s the opportunity to get up in front of that group and talk to people.”

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