Sonalee Rau

In the continuing Bacchanal debt crisis saga, Bacchanal President Dan Weinstein and Vice President Kay Soren made a presentation to the council extremely similar to the one they pitched to CCSC a week ago. After incurring $18,000 in debt after last year's last minute change of venue to West Lawn, the group's budget is down significantly, even after canceling the Fall Concert (instead they'll have programming by smaller and on-campus bands). In a move different from CCSC, though, ESC voted unanimously in favor of supporting Bacchanal. CC USenator Kenny Durell is also heading a taskforce investigating the scheduling problem and trying to figure out whether fault lies with the administration or Bacchanal. The goal of the investigation is ultimately to try and persuade the administration to refund the money, or at least obtain an apology and the promise to fix the problems from happening again to other groups. Upcoming events include TedX on November 29 and Basketball Mania on November 3. Update on the university's bid in Mayor Bloomberg's competition for a new or expanded engineering school in the city: besides Columbia, Stanford, NYU, and Cornell have also applied. SEAS is working on a large proposal utilizing space on the Manhattanville campus, building on areas of engineering in which they already have a lot to offer, and looking into those fields open for expansion. The new campus would potentially hold 1000 to 2000 students and about 200 faculty. However, Columbia does not have the funds to implement the large-scale proposal the city is looking for. While 100 million dollars from the city would be welcome if Columbia wins the bid, there would have to be other streams of income.more The package center's new server will be installed on Friday, November 4, over fall break. The new computer for the Carman center has already been installed. Also, there will possibly be  a TV screen outside the room with information like wait time and hours of availability. Engineering USenator Tim Qin reported that Cubmail will hopefully be moving to Gmail soon. Final thoughts: "Oh ... no one's in IEOR. Come on." -Anonymous Council Member Update: To clarify, CCSC has discussed the issue of Bacchanal funding, but has yet to formally vote on any proposed measures.

This fall, $4.6 million will be reallocated to increase funding for Ph.D. students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, which will include the financing of a center for graduate students on the Morningside campus.