A Newly Restructured CCSC Aims To Safely And Ambitiously Promote Student Life

Upper West Side NY

22 September, 2021

5:27 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY TALIA ABRAHAMSON SEPTEMBER 20, 2021 Aiming to ease student fears about the pandemic, Columbia College Student Council is developing a series of new proposals designed to improve academic and campus life. Although some ideas are pending administrative approval, CCSC hopes to improve its vision of student life, which is inseparable from pandemic concerns this year. During the second meeting of the academic year on Sept. 19, CCSC passed internal reform to encourage members to accomplish even more project-based initiatives. With COVID-19 positivity rates making each week as unpredictable as the next—for example, prompting a sudden return to the Zoom screen after an inaugural, in-person general body meeting—representatives are formulating plans for the semester around this uncertainty. "COVID is going to inform everything we work on this semester and likely this year," President Rads Mehta, CC '22, said. "It's not necessarily something that's in parallel or a separate thing. It's really part of everything." As a liaison between the Columbia College student body and administrators, CCSC is working to advocate for student concerns. One issue many students have reported to CCSC is their confusion over how to keep up with classes if they are quarantined, either because they have been contact traced or have tested positive for COVID-19. The confusion originates from the University's policies for the return to in-person instruction. Columbia has implemented a policy that "faculty members cannot decide to teach remotely if they have concerns about campus safety," so as a result, many professors have not set up hybrid learning or class recordings on Zoom. All members of the Columbia community who test positive for COVID-19 must isolate for a minimum of ten days, regardless of vaccination status. Undergraduate students have been isolating in Special Interest Community dorms, and according to CCSC, due to fears of overcrowding, Columbia has begun to house students temporarily at the Hotel Beacon. Students have been told to "work with their instructors to develop a plan to receive instruction" if they have to miss classes or coursework due to COVID-19-related absences, including quarantine and isolation. In a meeting with Dean of Academic Affairs Lisa Hollibaugh, Mehta learned that the University claims it is currently unable to offer a solution beyond this case-by-case basis because of autonomy granted to professors in the classroom. "That was a little bit disappointing, just because we want to be able to give students some sort of reassurance that, if you missed your class, you're not going to actually miss material," she said. As a potential solution, CCSC is proposing a University-wide expansion of note-taking accommodations, which are supported through Disabilities Services. Currently, Disabilities Services pays one student per requested class to provide anonymous notes, but CCSC hopes to appoint one student per class for as many classes as possible, in combination with classes that already have a designated notetaker. Since Sept. 13, 116 affiliates have tested positive for COVID-19 either through on-campus medical services' symptomatic testing, asymptomatic testing at Lerner Hall, or outside testing locations. Despite remaining at a "yellow", or low, risk level, the University imposed a 10-person limit on indoor gatherings and restricted residence hall access in recognition of the recently heightened COVID-19 transmission among students on campus. The goal for CCSC and administrators, according to Vice President for Policy Krishna Menon, CC '22, is to reach the "green" risk level that has the fewest restrictions within the next two weeks. They feel the pressure to take advantage of outdoor student life before the weather turns cold and COVID-19 cases have an even greater potential to rise. The University has been at the "yellow" risk level since the beginning of the academic year. "There's a lot of planning that is contingent on us being green by October," Menon said. "I think this is a way to reassure that the numbers won't spike, that we won't see yellow and we won't go to orange." Unlike the yellow level, the green level allows for a return to indoor dining and no capacity limits on academic, administrative, social, and extracurricular gatherings. Achieving this level of safety would not only return campus closer to pre-pandemic conditions, but also help Mehta achieve her goal of passing down Columbia traditions and institutional knowledge from seniors. "There are a lot of people who are leading clubs that have never had the club experience in person," Mehta said. "A lot of clubs lost a ton of members last year. A lot of clubs didn't recruit members last year. And to me, this fall semester is the last time for us to revamp our clubs before we lose the seniors, who are the only people who have that knowledge of what the club culture looked like." Elsa Chung, CC '23, the vice president for campus life, said that CCSC has had to cancel events, such as a singer-songwriter showcase called Fall Fest, due to the University's yellow status. In compliance with restrictions on outdoor gatherings, she is hoping instead to put together a "Lit Hum" night on Oct. 7 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. for students who took Literature Humanities virtually last year. Sections would meet in person, in three phases to reduce crowding, to solidify the relationships between classmates. "We're trying to focus on being both optimistic and realistic, so we're shifting attention toward events that are more focused on a specific group of students," Chung said. "We want campus life initiatives to provide that safety net as well as just a great COVID-conscious manner of socializing on and around campus." Depending on the success of Lit Hum night, CCSC might replicate the event for Contemporary Civilization classes. Chung is leading the Community, Clubs, and Traditions task force, which is one of five working groups that constitute CCSC. The council passed a motion on Sept. 19 to dissolve its four main—campus life, policy, communications, and finance—into task forces, which include Student Wellbeing; Identity & Diversity; Communications; and Academics, Alum, and Career, and an ad hoc committee on financial policy. Once CCSC representatives are sorted into task forces, they will take on their own projects. Student Wellbeing, for example, plans to work with the Engineering Student Council, administrators, and faculty members on developing preventative, rather than reactionary, resources for mental health. "For the communities, clubs, and traditions, COVID and COVID policies are definitely going to be hugely taken into account because we want to make sure we're following all the guidelines and keeping the community safe," Mehta said. "But at the same time, that's also something that we want to revamp and make as strong as possible because of how much community was lost during COVID. I would say that COVID is informing all of our decision-making and our vision." Deputy News Editor Talia Abrahamson can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow Spectator on Twitter at @ColumbiaSpec. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.