The majority vote was not enough to impeach Cunningham, falling short from a two-thirds vote requirement on Tuesday night. Bearing this in mind, the already-tense GS Council environment will cross into deeper grounds of awkwardness and bad vibes. In a statement made to The Commentariat, Vice President of Policy Nancy Saunders explained that Cunningham “will attempt to damage the reputations of those who voted in favor of his impeachment, or make them otherwise feel uncomfortable on council.” Indeed, Cunningham could do with all the support he can get, knowing that a majority voted against him. What should be more important for Cunningham as it seems now, is to remain collected and finish the year off with a graceful bow out. Unfortunately, Saunders’ predictions may be right–Cunningham was reported saying that he felt that bridges were “burnt” and relationships “torched.”

The Commentariat later caught up with friend of Cunningham and Senior Class President Chikodi Chima who doubted Cunningham would have put in an application for office that was due at noon today. When asked about the failure to impeach Cunningham, Chima believed it “a good thing,” explaining that he was behind a lot of central GS developments such as www.gslounge.com and taking him out now “would be stupid” since it’s so late in the game. Ironically, Chima also pointed out that “many of the people who voted against him last night only have voting power on GSSC because he lobbied for their right to vote as members of council.”

The issue itself simmered as council members found points of contention in Cunningham’s actions, which were sometimes misleading and went against the constitution. This semester, Cunningham reportedly took an extra-light load in order to devote extra hours per week to GSSC. His intentions seem in order, but the heart of the issue seems to be that the way he went about doing things and making decisions lacked the strong foundation of communication needed between members of council. So far, reports have seemed to depict Cunningham as manipulative and self-serving. I think the matter might be a little more complicated than that.

Power to the sheeple. Fake scandal swept through campus today, as Bwog and the paper of record fronted a CCSC meeting about a website called Juicycampus.com, which is by all accounts a less enlightened ripoff of Columbia’s own Bored at network.  GSCC had more important things to worry about, since a pissant off-campus website is piddling in comparison to the non-traditional school’s housing situation (while the Spec article doesn’t mention GSSC’s involvement, communications VP Brody Berg’s email cryptically referred to it as a “GSSC Housing Hearing at the University Senate.” It’s a semantic point, although it highlights just how different the student councils’ priorities have been…). Columbia can hardly house 350 students in 81 buildings in varying states of deterioration. But this is heartening compared to GS Dean of Students Dominic Stellini’s all-too-philisophical assessment of things:

GS is experiencing a “dearth of housing,” according to Stellini, who explained that this is a common problem in Columbia schools across the board. “Our housing allocation numbers don’t meet our needs—I am not sure that they meet any school’s needs.”

But it doesn’t matter if they meet other school’s needs. GS is not GSAS–it’s an undergraduate school serving students who are pursuing four-year degrees, and who spend several hours on campus four to five days a week.  Who cares if GS’s housing situation is on par with the the graduate schools’? What about the 5,000 CC and SEAS undergrads who recieve four years of guaranteed housing that isn’t neglected in the University’s phantom, two-decade capital improvement plan?

It’s a travesty that the University won’t be bothered to adequately house the modest fraction of GS students who feel they need to be closer to classes, friends, and everything else that makes campus life better than living off the Myrtle Avenue J. But one can understand why they won’t be bothered when they have the likes of Dean Stellini bothering them.

And now to the hackwars. Without campus radicals of hair-brained administrators to offend popular sensitivities, Columbia’s press corps has let its raging id roam free–by offending each other, that is. First we had this mocking bit of lecture hackery from no less illustrious a figure than Blue and White editor Anna Philips. The situation further escalated when el participante revealed a disturbing pattern of Zionist bias at the campus paper of record. Philips’ gripe seemed to be with the Spectator’s continued faith in the print medium, which is a little bizarre coming from the editor of a print publication. Meanwhile, ep is irked that Spec is slightly to the right of Al Ahram as far its Middle East coverage goes.

So have the campus hacktivists grown so disaffected with the student body that they’d rather take pot shots at each other’s expense than wage a legitimate battle of ideas? God I hope so, since it would make this blog about a thousand times more interesting to read. I also hope that Spectator brings back unregistered commenting, since it would allow critics of Spec’s news coverage to take it up on the message boards rather than having to drag an infant opinion blog into the hackwars fray. I think unregistered commenting would probably mean a huge bounce in Spec web traffic–after all, it wasn’t that long ago that an unassuming Spec message board touched off a blogospheric free-for-all. What say you, Tom?

General Studies student council president Niko Cunningham sent the following missive to his constituents a few days ago:

Dear GS,

This is the most important email you will ever receive from me as your Student Body President. On April 1, new students admitted to Columbia College and SEAS will receive acceptance packets delivered to their homes throughout America.  Why should you care?

Columbia is engaged in a financial aid arms race with other Ivy heavyweights such as Brown, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, and Dartmouth.  Over the past few months, one by one, each of those Universities have made bold and paradigm-shifting financial aid overtures to students those Schools compete for.

It is expected that in a matter of days, Columbia University will announce an extraordinary financial aid plan for undergraduates.  The University does not want to lose its brightest incoming students to other institutions, and now it is forced to offer extraordinary aid to those same students to compete. But, will GS be included, or even mentioned?

I’m not sure what makes Cunningham think that “an extraordinary financial aid plan” is about to be announced, but assuming this is true (a huge assumption, as such an announcement would be uncharacteristically abrupt by Fair Alma’s standards. Affordability typically hasn’t been one of PrezBo’s talking points either, especially with the university throwing money at a new institute whose pointlesness is barely outstripped by its self-importance. The religion major is basically a program in religion, society and public life anyway–this is a classic example of scholars goading the university into a pointless bureucractic reshuffling that has nothing whatsoever to do with academics), I’m not sure he completely understands how financial aid works.

Columbia College’s admissions are need-blind. General Studies’ are not. This means that Columbia is obligated to make all College students’ educations affordable–if they weren’t, you’d see Princeton and Cornell swamped with applications from qualified middle and lower-income students. But its also a symptom of the Colleges’ near-limitless reservoirs of cash. GSers are so saddled with debt that donating to the school’s financial aid coffers is the last thing they have in mind. The College has John Kluge.

This is hardly an equitable situation, and GS’s financial aid stash is barely enough to cover some cosmetic “merit-based” aid. But if GS were to be integrated into any major expansion of CC and SEAS financial aid, it would mean that the school would have to reach into money specifically set aside for the other undergraduate schools. This would come at a cost–for one thing, it could presage the end of GS’s existence as a financially and administratively separate institution. The last thing GS should want is to have to leech off of the other undergraduate schools, especially since its in the unfavorable position of having to constantly justify its existence.

GS should be included in any long-term financial aid plan. But Cunningham–and whichever administrators are hypothetically planning this surprise financial aid expansion of his–must include it in a way that doesn’t threaten GS’s long-term existence. GS should be willing to give up the possibility of need-based aid in order to ensure its survival as an undergraduate school that caters specifically to nontraditional students.  I’m sure Cunningham agrees with me. And I’m sure there’s a way to give financial aid to long-suffering GS students without allowing the school to get bought out.

Actually there is a way: get rid of ridiculous academic boondoggles. Switch GS student loans over to aid, as has already been done at the other undergraduate schools. Get a rich CC alum to underwrite a good chunk of GS’s existing financial aid requirements. There. Problem solved, right?