Governments Struggle to Find Ideal Model

Graphic by Madeleine Lopeman

Some things are constant: you see their faces on fliers every day, read their e-mails once a week, and turn out to vote once a year. But underneath the surface, the four undergraduate student councils each offer a different model of how to represent student interests.

Although they are generally lumped together, the Barnard Student Government Association, General Studies Student Council, Engineering Student Council, and Columbia College Student Council each tailors itself structurally, practically, and ideologically to fit a variety of internal and external factors. At stake are positions of influence with the Columbia administration and large budgets to fund student activities, so the councils inherently face questions of how to elect council members, distribute power, and delegate money. While the councils rely heavily on precedent and tradition, their operations are by no means set in stone, leaving each council to face its own set of recurring questions.

SEEKING IDENTITY

Call it nature or nurture, but the councils are inevitably shaped by the schools that gave birth to them. But as they grow, the councils also seek to actively define their roles with respect to their schools.

The GSSC rallies around the identity of the “non-traditional” student. However, as members have seen, this rallying point is also what makes it difficult to compile a council that will properly represent the student population. Unlike Barnard, where students can identify with one another based on gender, and SEAS, where students share an interest in science and engineering, the GS student body lacks obvious cohesion. Council members argue that this distinction makes the role of the council as a unifier even more important, but the group is sometimes criticized by GS students who claim that GSSC is ineffective and not at all visible to the rest of the student body. GS student Michael Rain, who is running for vice president of policy. has said in past meetings, “I have no idea what the GSSC wants to do, what it has been doing ... the bridge of communication to the students, it’s not there.”

Feeling that Columbia College has a comparatively less-defined identity, the Experience Columbia party, which is running for CCSC executive board positions, suggested building up Hamilton Hall as a place for CC students, in the same way that the Mudd Building is associated with SEAS, in their platform.

Barnard defines itself as a liberal arts women’s college partnered with Columbia University and prides itself on providing a small, intimate community for young women. The aims of SGA, an all-women’s council, coalesce around this identity, as SGA sets out to provide support for its student body. SGA’s Student Health Advisory Committee, for instance, focuses largely on women’s health issues.

DIRECT DEMOCRACY?

One of the most visible and contentious differences between councils is ESC’s tradition of electing its executive board internally, rather than putting the vote to the student body, as the other three councils do. The perennial debate pits supporters—who argue that outgoing council members have the knowledge and experience to pick their successors—against reformers, who criticize internal elections for barring a true democracy.

“You’re basically asking people [the student body] to give up their vote,” said Sam John, SEAS ’09 and ESC junior class representative.

But Liz Strauss, SEAS ’08 and ESC president, maintained that the current system “really allows us to have an in-depth conversation about the candidates,” adding that it “leaves any mudslinging behind closed doors, and between 30 people.”

Strauss said that because she and her board are selected internally, their roles differ from that of their counterparts.

“Michelle [Diamond, CC ’08] is Columbia College student body president. I am Engineering Student Council president,” she said, emphasizing her duty to the council.

But this year’s dispute reached a new level when students both on and off council became more vocal about the electoral system.

“Because they are not the ones voting, we feel that students are ultimately shut out of
the elections,” wrote Samantha John, Kimberly Manis, and Alastair Shearman, all SEAS students, in a February opinion piece in Spectator.

The debate drew council outsiders into publicizing external elections and writing a constitutional amendment to substitute them for internal elections. But despite heated debate, the amendment was not passed.

Members of the other three councils say that external elections hold them directly accountable to their constituents.

As SGA states in its constitution, “All Barnard College students by virtue of having paid the student activities fee are members of the SGA and are entitled to ... vote on issues and candidates in College-wide elections.”

Sarah Besnoff, BC ’09 and incoming SGA president, agreed that, as SGA members, all Barnard students deserve a say in who represents them.

Diamond echoed her reasoning, adding that external elections make CCSC “more accountable to the student body,” especially considering that the councils allocate student group budgets through Funding at Columbia University, the process through which the groups’ governing boards request funding annually.

Accurate representation is also an important factor for GSSC. Because it represents an unusually diverse and often disparate school of older students, some fear that a small group of council members choosing a leader internally would not necessarily be an indication of the opinions of the larger student body.

“Unlike many other groups that gather for affinity or recreation, the GSSC exists to serve a more crucial and specific interest to the students of this college. This council has a responsibility to work towards solutions for the concerns of GS, which already lacks a developed sense of community. Because we are generally fractured as a school, the role of the GSSC is more important than the common undergraduate council. And who you decide to elect to represent you has greater consequences,” Rain said when he announced his candidacy for vice president of policy.

The only aspect of the other three councils’ operations that is comparable to ESC’s internal elections is the use of appointments, usually reserved for specialized positions—such as GSSC’s Health Initiatives representative or CCSC and ESC’s directors of technology—or positions for which there were no candidates.

Furthermore, while ESC may elect its own executive board internally, CCSC members are not even allowed to endorse candidates in the following election.

Allowing CCSC members to make endorsements would “bias against CCSC outsiders,” Andrew Ness, CC’08 and CCSC Elections Board chair, said.

Although Strauss acknowledged the disadvantages of internal elections, she stressed that ESC is a “representative democracy” whereby students vote for their representatives, who in turn vote for the executive board. “If they [students] don’t like the way their representatives are voting, they should reconsider the way they’re voting,” she said.

The other unique aspect of ESC elections is that the president is elected first, and presidential candidates are allowed to drop down to run for other executive board positions. Those who are defeated have yet another chance at council, because they can run in the later elections for representatives and class council.

“It is also a position where a lot of the people running for that [president] would be incredibly qualified for another position on our E-board,” Strauss said.

The councils also grapple with issues of voting power once in office.

For example, the GSSC voted earlier this year to widen the circle of council members who had voting power to include vice presidents. The effort saw opposition from certain corners, who thought it would be a misinterpretation of the constitution. After former GSSC President Niko Cunningham was removed from office, some opponents of the impeachment pointed out that several of those voting in favor of impeachment were members for whom Cunningham had fought to get voting rights.

In CCSC and ESC, the president has no vote unless there is a tie. ESC puts even further limits on council, prohibiting class presidents, vice presidents, and the director of technology from voting except during constitutional review. This leaves the voting power in the hands of the three policy representatives, three council liaisons, two senators, four members of the executive board, and the eight class representatives.

The hope is that, as a whole, there will be more voices representing the general engineering school population than representing the individual classes.

ADMINISTRATIVE RELATIONSHIP

Council members repeatedly champion their role as the liaison linking students and administrators. But in their quest to articulate and advocate for student interests, some council members have it more cut out than others.

Perhaps because the Barnard community is so small and self-contained, SGA is arguably one of the more successful councils when it comes to maintaining close ties to faculty and administration. The executive board meets weekly with Dean of the College
Dorothy Denburg and several times a semester with Barnard President Judith Shapiro.

Denburg and Shapiro, and a number of other faculty and administrators, attend several representative council meetings per year, a rare occasion at the other three councils’ meetings.

“The administration really listens to us,” SGA President Laura Stoffel, BC ’08, said. “We have a great relationship.”

Mark Johnson, the CCSC junior class vice president and liaison to SGA, said he was impressed with—and somewhat envious of—the level of contact SGA members had with their administrators. CCSC members often work with administrators relevant to their roles—for instance, CCSC Academic Affairs Representative Donna Desilus, CC ’09, meets regularly with Dean Kathryn Yatrakis—but most contact from the University is funneled through the executive council president, such as discussions about financial aid reform.

That’s something Johnson wants to change. Last semester, he worked on what he then called his “secret project”—which ultimately became the Art of Community Campaign. Diamond reacted disapprovingly when he talked to the administration before informing the rest of CCSC.

“In the future, if you go to an administrator about a resolution before going to council, it won’t be voted on,” she told CCSC at a February meeting.

Similarly, ESC members collaborate with the respective administrators that suit their council positions, often in conjunction with CCSC members—for example, Peter Valeiras, SEAS ’09 and Student Services Representative, and his CCSC counterpart, Molly Conley, CC ’10, usually meet together with Scott Wright, vice president of student and administrative services.

But there are other administrators who are beneficial for the entire council to meet.

“For administrators that are overarching, we do make an effort for everyone on the council to meet them,” Strauss said.

At the beginning of the year, the council had lunch or dinner with Deans Kevin Shollenberger and Chris Colombo. Once they were elected, the first-years also had dinner with Colombo and Dean Ajay Nair.

The relationship with the central GS administration has been somewhat rockier this semester, with a notable and public breakdown in communication between Dean Peter Awn and Cunningham. It became a point of contention for GSSC members, many of whom disagreed on what the role of the president should be in relation to the office of the dean.

“I was asked in a debate last year if I would submit to the administration, and I said I would never,” Cunningham said in a hearing several weeks ago.

Senior class president Chikodi Chima and others have spoken out against the assumption that the president was required to act as a “conduit” to the administration.

At the same time, former vice president of policy and current acting president Nancy Saunders has pointed back to a letter from Awn calling the GSSC “irrelevant” because of its difficulties in communicating with the deans.

While GS administrators do not typically sit in on GSSC meetings, several have shown up to recent meetings this semester. Dean Dominic Stellini, the GSSC faculty advisor, oversaw a financial town hall meeting, the impeachment hearing, and a meeting right after spring break to discuss the financial aid package. Dean of Students Mary McGee sat in on last Tuesday’s meeting after the Elections Commission resigned.

As the GSSC is made up of an older group of students, it is given more freedom in conducting meetings and financial dealings, but maintain relationships with the Dean of Students office, which members say offers guidance and has stepped in this semester when the GSSC ran into its own difficulties.

FINANCES

Along with its uniqueness as the student council of a women’s college, SGA’s also has a role as a club governing board, similar to the Activities Board at Columbia and the Student Governing Board. Since the ’80s, SGA has been providing general funding for all recognized Barnard clubs, as well as paying into SGB and Community Impact allocations. SGA also makes a donation to Club Sports.

SGA joins the other three councils in the year-end Funding at Columbia University process, whereby the councils determine how much money to allocate to student groups through SGB, ABC, CI, Club Sports, and the Inter-Greek Council.

The rest of the year, the councils support clubs through event co-sponsorships.
CCSC annually inherits a large surplus from its predecessors—this year, there was $20,000 left over from last year—something Diamond considers problematic.

“It’s really dumb if all these clubs need money and we’re sitting on thousands of dollars,” Diamond said in a meeting early this month. CCSC has increased co-sponsorships and programming, “So this year there won’t be as much of a surplus.”

“But we are trying to spend it responsibly,” added Jennifer Choi, CC ’09 and CCSC vice president for finance, who is running for the position again.

Unlike the CCSC, GSSC is perpetually strapped for cash. There has been talk among GSSC members of restructuring the way that student life fees are paid. Funds in the budget are currently not allocated evenly to each class, but are increased according to seniority—the senior class receives significantly more funding than the freshman class.

First-year President Alex Katz and Saunders have both criticized this policy, and there was an effort to reallocate funds after the spring budget was released and the first year class had been given $100 of programming money for the entire semester. Last year’s president Susannah Karlsson has argued that it’s really a matter of “waiting one’s turn”—while underclassman may get the short end of the stick, they will eventually reach senior status, when more money will be spent on them. Proponents argue that it’s important to structure the funding this way in order to give seniors a memorable send-off, as they are soon to be alumni and much of the GS endowment is built on alumni donations.

The GSSC is also in the process of undergoing constitutional review, with significant emphasis placed on the way that the finances are handled. The current structure of the constitution makes it unclear exactly what role those outside the finances committee—such as that of the social chair—have in allocating funds.

But GSSC shares this ambiguity with the three other councils—ambiguity not only about finances, but also about administrative bonds, voting rights, and, of course, the role of student government.
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