CCSC Candidates For Next Year Propose Tickets, Platforms

Three weeks after the race for Columbia College Student Council president was jolted into motion by a pair of bid announcements, financial aid, activity space, and student communication have emerged as the early themes of this spring's campaign.

Seth Flaxman, CC '07, and Nishant Dixit, CC '07, both announced Feb. 17 that they will seek the CCSC presidency for the 2006-2007 school year. Since then, the two have nearly filled out their tickets and begun crafting their platforms-both of which will place a strong emphasis on enhancing the financial well-being of students and the ability of student groups to function on campus.

Dixit has selected Anthony Walker, CC '07, as vice president for funding, Calvin Sun, CC '08, as vice president for communications, Bryan Lee, CC '07, as vice president for policy, and Laura Taranto, CC '07, as vice president for campus life.

Joining Flaxman on his ticket are Sarah Hwang, CC '08, as vice president for funding, Andrew Russeth, CC '07, as vice president for communications, and Izumi Devalier, CC '07, as vice president for policy. The party has not yet announced a candidate for vice president of campus life.

Neither campaign's agenda is set in stone, but for both, tackling financial aid sits atop a long list of preliminary campaign goals. Each ticket sat down with Spectator as a group to discuss their election platforms.

"If we can't help every single person on financial aid, we can at least target the people who need it the most, and we should work with the financial aid office to do that," Dixit said. He added that, while the Financial Aid Office has made strides at improving aid in the long term, his ticket would push for more short-term solutions, including subsidized meals and housing.

According to Flaxman, the challenge of addressing financial aid was the strongest motivation for his candidacy. "If you don't put your hardest thing as your top priority, it doesn't even belong on your to-do list," he said.

Devalier said that the ticket would use the council's connections with administrators to push for greater transparency in the financial aid office and to advance the goals of the Financial Aid Reform student coalition, which advocates replacing loans with grants and eliminating pay-ins for low-income families.

Likewise, both campaigns-citing the perceived insularity of past councils-said that they would seek to improve communication among the council, student groups, and individual students.

"We need more groups, more events, more exchange," Walker said. "The larger events are the ones that you remember."

Dixit, citing the success of Glass House Rocks, said that he hoped to improve the ease of gaining recognition for new student groups and the ability of existing ones to get space and funding, particularly through the implementation of debit cards.

Members of Flaxman's ticket said they would attempt to build lines of communication between student groups and the council about funding and space coordination, which Flaxman said could take the form of regular meetings geared toward student group leaders and the general student body.

Russeth added that the Manhattanville expansion is an issue that "needs a light shone upon it" and that the council was well-equipped to be a non-partisan resource for the student body.

Due to CCSC campaign rules, neither ticket has announced a party name yet.