Columbia Spectator News

At debate, General Studies Student Council candidates talk communication

Elizabeth Sedran — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

Candidates for General Studies Student Council emphasized the need for greater student outreach and better communication between GS and the larger Columbia community at a debate Tuesday.

Unlike elections for Columbia College Student Council and Engineering Student Council, all the positions for GSSC this year are contested. Current council members said this is the first time in recent memory where there are multiple candidates running for all the positions.

About 40 students attended the debates, and candidates said that the sizable turnout was indicative of greater student involvement in the election process.

The three candidates for GSSC president mostly stuck to campaign rhetoric instead of specific proposals.

Community Services Representative Robbie LeDesma, GS, said he wanted to make the council more accessible by publicizing resources designed to help GS students.

“Here at GS we’re a proud bunch of do-it-yourselfers,” he said. LeDesma plans to outline specific goals with the larger community and identify ways in which GSSC can work more closely with the administration.

Joseph Giovanni Ramos, GS and current vice president of student events, said he hopes to improve efficiency in the way GSSC is run.

“My favorite thing in the whole world is efficiency—things working how they should, when they should,” he said.

He said he sees the role of president as “the ultimate mediator” and a centralized leader for other GS student leaders.

Hannah Germond, GS and current first-year class president, said she would like to restructure the format of GSSC meetings. If elected president, Germond said she would move audience questions to the beginning to make meetings more appealing to the public and give council members a better sense of community issues. Meetings would also include a presidential address summarizing current GSSC actions at the beginning of each meeting, to give the audience context.

All three candidates stressed the importance of reaching out to new students during New Student Orientation Program and placing a continuous emphasis on resources such as the new peer advising network and the Dean of Students office.

The candidates for vice president of policy said they want to improve student services.

Michael Christie, GS, said he wanted to improve the accessibility of mental health services.

“There’s a gap between those who need mental help and are considering seeking it, and those walking in the door,” he said.

Edgardo Martinez, GS and current first-year class vice president, said he wants to focus on a peer mentoring program to make advising more accessible to students, because the deans are busy and potentially more intimidating, he said.

Both candidates also talked up the need for better communication between students and the administration, saying that to create effective change they have to work as one community rather than two competing ones.

Ari Platt, GS and current vice president of communications, is also running for vice president of policy but was unable to attend the debates.

While the turnout for the debates was big, a substantial portion of the audience consisted of current GSSC members. Nonetheless, after the debate, LeDesma said, “This is the best turnout I’ve ever seen. More students are becoming actively involved.”

Amber Ewin, GS ’16, said the debates helped her decide who she is going to vote for for president.

“Ramos offered a lot of viable and real solutions,” Ewin said. “He had concrete opinions.”

elizabeth.sedran@columbiaspectator.com | @ezactron

Barnard introduces Spirit Week in place of Greek Games

Ruby Mellen — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

After a two-year-long attempt to revive Barnard’s Greek Games, the college’s Student Government Association and McIntosh Activities Council have decided to retire the tradition.

Due to a lack of participation in the Greek Games over the past two years, McAC will combine the event with the more popular Barnard Spirit Day, creating one larger Spirit Week, which will run from April 14-18.

“The ultimate goal of Spirit Week is to get students to plug into their Barnard identity for a week ... and just enjoy being a college student right here and right now,” McAC President Zoe Schein, BC ’13, said.

The week will begin with a party in the Barnard quad open to all students on April 14. Other events include an alumni-student happy hour at the Village Pourhouse, the traditional Spirit Day, and a field day, complete with an inflatable obstacle course—a way to keep some element of the class competition and activity of the Greek Games alive, Schein said.

The games, which began at Barnard in the 1920s, were canceled during Vietnam War protests in 1967, and have only been held sporadically since. The tradition never regained prominence due to increasing concerns that the games were promoting the pageantry and objectification of women. Events consisted of mock-ancient Greek sports such as hurdle jumping and human chariot races, poetry recitals, and dance performances.

“In the face of the war, in many ways, students’ priorities shifted, and their needs, in return, did the same,” Schein said in a follow-up email. “Students attempted to revive the games many times in the intervening years between ’68 and today, each failing to appropriately cater to the student body’s needs.”

When SGA and McAC brought back the tradition in 2010, they modernized many of the events. Instead of chariot racing and hoop rolling, the new Greek Games featured “Plato’s Pilates,” “Yoga in a Toga” and flag football.

Despite efforts to make the games appealing to students, the “participation rate wasn’t that high,” Schein said.

“We also had alumni in the Barnard community who were upset because the games no longer looked the way they used to,” she added.

After last year’s event, Schein said McAC wanted to find a different use for the funds previously allocated for the Greek Games. The group looked to one of Barnard’s most popular events—Spirit Day—and chose to capitalize on its success in a weeklong event.

The Greek Games are “just not relevant” anymore, Schein said.

McAC and SGA have continued their partnership in planning the event. McAC Vice President Maya Zinkow, BC ’14, and SGA Representative for Community Programming Rivka Holzer, BC ’15, have been working closely together.

“Both McAC and SGA are organizations that seek to improve the well-being of our student body from programming and policy perspectives, and we feel our events will satisfy our collective mission,” Zinkow said in an email.

Schein agreed, saying she felt optimistic about the new event and the groups’ relationship.

“This year is the best, best relationship the two groups have ever had,” she said.

The theme for the first Spirit Week is “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” or more generally, a ’90s theme.

Both groups hope to significantly improve on last year’s unenthusiastic turnout for the Greek Games.

“I think I’m more likely to go since it is a week rather than a day,” Maddy Henkin, BC ’15, said. “Even though I love Barnard traditions, I don’t plan my schedule around them.”

Zinkow said that the week is aimed at re-energizing students before finals and making them feel comfortable and happy, fitting with the nostalgia of the ’90s theme.

“We hope we can help students remember why they chose Barnard in the first place,” Zinkow said, “or maybe even why we all thought Tamagotchis and Furbies were ever a good idea.”

news@columbiaspectator.com | @ColumbiaSpec

New Journalism School dean Coll plans two-year Master's, tuition reductions

Josephine McGowan — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

Steve Coll, the new Journalism School dean, won’t take his job until next month, but he already has bold ideas for the school.

Coll is looking to create a two-year master’s program, increase the rigor of the curriculum, and assess models to lower tuition for Journalism students.

Last month, Coll was appointed dean of the Columbia Journalism School. A former Washington Post managing editor and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, he is a staff writer at the New Yorker, like his predecessor, Nicholas Lemann.

Coll did not attend journalism school, instead taking a position at California magazine directly following his graduation from Occidental College. He majored in history and English, and said that by the time he graduated, he knew he wanted to report for the rest of his life.

His career path reflects a widely held advice among many journalists in the industry: getting a job right away can be more worthwhile than going to journalism school for college graduates. And even though Coll is taking over one of the country’s most prestigious graduate schools of journalism, he agrees.

“Frankly, if you went to an Ivy League school as an undergraduate and got a great internship, you can skip over journalism school,” he said in an interview Monday. “But I always had an enormous amount of respect for people who took the time to commit themselves to this career by taking on a graduate degree.”

Coll said that a two-year master’s program would provide more flexibility than the current one-year program does.

“My going-in thinking is that the school would benefit from a uniform two-year approach if it were affordable for students,” Coll said, adding that he believes he could raise money for financial aid using strategies he learned while working for nonprofit agencies.

He also said he wanted to make the program more ambitious. The curriculum of the school should be as competitive and challenging as that of a medical school, he said.

“At the end of a very rigorous medical education, you’ve had some time to really be challenged to think and to learn,” he said. “I’d love for a journalism degree to be like that.”

“Fundamentally, I believe that the value that the school creates in the lives of students … is the experience of journalism,” he said.

But Coll said $51,904, the current tuition rates for the school, might be too much to pay for that experience, especially as journalism is not a lucrative industry.

“In the era of the web and social media, information wants to be free but journalism wants to be paid,” Coll said. “We still need to solve that dilemma.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reporters and correspondents will see a job outlook decline of 8 percent from 2010 to 2020. Coll, however, said he sees no reason this grim forecast should deter any journalism hopefuls.

“When I came out of school, most of the young people I knew wanted to work on newspapers,” he said. “It wasn’t the newspapers that drew everybody, it was the opportunity to have a career in journalism and to live an engaged life of variety,”

“That hasn’t changed—it’s still thrilling and it still creates profitable companies,” he added.

Journalism schools have been profiting, too, as the admission percentages and demand have been going up. In 2009 alone, Columbia’s Journalism School saw a 38 percent increase in applications from the previous year.

Soon after his appointment, Coll was criticized for being behind the times in an industry that depends on social media. Michael Wolff of USA Today, CC ’75, called him a “quite boring” writer who “has never tweeted in his life.”

“As journalism becomes an ever more challenged profession, people trying to build a journalism career might want to know how to hold an audience’s attention,” Wolff wrote in a widely circulated article last month.

Coll, who has now tweeted twice from his new account (and has 1,291 followers), said a focus on social media is misplaced. More important, he said, is knowing how to use the huge amounts of data available today to better perform functions that journalists have performed in the past.

“As long as Columbia doesn’t fall behind and lose confidence about the basic values about journalism, there’s no reason to lose confidence,” Coll said.

Students Wednesday were divided on Coll’s proposals and lack of social media expertise.

Michael Orr, Journalism ’13, said he thought a two-year curriculum would be beneficial.

“You’re not allowed to select your schedule until the second semester,” he said. “By now, I believe I am starting to get the hang of this semester, and it’s about to end. That’s a bit frustrating, so I wouldn’t mind being here longer.”

Orr said social media, and especially Twitter, is very conducive to a journalism career.

“If you can’t share a link or put it out on social media, at a certain point those stories are going to sink,” he said. While the school is already doing better at “incorporating social media and the web into our classes,” he said, there’s too much emphasis on print reporting.

Alana Abramson, Journalism ’13, said she didn’t think the two-year master’s program curriculum was necessary, especially because of tuition.

“Though it’s not a bad idea, it wouldn’t be helpful if the tuition was raised to $100,000, as tuition is a huge factor,” she said. “He would have to lower the tuition if he plans on expanding the program, and think about how that two-year program would impact the school. I believe that the master’s degree is fine as it is.”

Donna Owens, Journalism ’13, agreed that the program didn’t need any changes.

“I don’t think it is a process that is broken and needs to be fixed in any way,” she said.

Owens, who held a career in journalism before deciding to come to Columbia because she “felt the need” to gain skills, said Twitter is often overemphasized in the industry.

“Twitter is valuable, but I do not believe that it is the determinant of whether one is or is not an excellent journalist,” she said. “To be successful, one needs to have a combination of familiarity with digital and social media, but there is no substitute for excellent reporting and writing.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that the tuition for the school was $84,884. It is actually $51,904. Spectator regrets the error.

josephine.mcgowan@columbiaspectator.com | @josie_mcgowan

Frederick Douglass residents vow lawsuit as NYCHA details development timeline

Eva Kalikoff — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

New York City Housing Authority representatives released new details about the timeline for development in the Frederick Douglass Houses at a meeting Wednesday night, as opponents vowed to pursue a class action lawsuit.

The meeting, at West Side High School, was the second held by NYCHA to explain the development plan, which involves constructing three private apartment buildings in the middle of the Upper West Side public housing complex, between 100th and 104th streets and between Amsterdam and Manhattan avenues.

While NYCHA representatives mostly discussed already-released information about the plan, they also detailed the project’s approval process.

First, a request for proposals will go out by the end of April, Lynn Godfrey, chief communications officer for NYCHA, told Spectator—a detail that was not included in the public presentation.

“It goes out to potential developers, and it will be open for public review,” Godfrey said.

Fred Harris, NYCHA’s executive vice president for development, told attendees that before any construction can begin, there must be a formal review process with an environmental review, formal community engagement involving a more detailed presentation about the plan, and approval from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Then, “if everything were to go off without a hitch,” Harris said, the submission of an application to HUD “might occur near the end of next year.” He added that construction was not likely to begin until 2016.

Opponents, however, are hoping to derail that process. Frederick Douglass Tenant Association President Jane Wisdom said residents would take NYCHA to court.
“We are going to do a class action suit,” she said.

Wisdom said the lawsuit already has the support of tenants’ associations at Smith Houses and Amsterdam Houses. She also said that she is working with “two lawyers, and I’m getting ready to hire a third.”

About 300 people attended the meeting, which was generally less rowdy than the first meeting last month, when many attendees were shut out and police had to be called to keep things under control.

Harris acknowledged the chaos of that meeting.

“To the extent in which any of you were inconvenienced, I apologize,” he said Wednesday.

Because of the more spacious accommodations Wednesday, opposition was less fierce—but attendees still chastised the agency.

Madelyn Innocent, a Frederick Douglass resident and newly appointed Community Board 7 member said that NYCHA had not been transparent at many of the roundtable discussions that agency employees regularly cite as resident outreach.

“We said nothing about luxury buildings” at the roundtables, Innocent said. She warned that “they say they’re not going to privatize it, not now.”

Political candidates also railed against the plan.

“This is a land grab,” Zead Ramadan, who is running for the City Council seat that includes the houses, said. “Do not allow them to start the process.”

“We need to fight this. We need to stop this,” said CB7 member Mel Wymore, who is running for a different Upper West Side City Council seat. “This is a public process that is non-existent. This is not going to improve the community.”

Democratic District Leader Mark Levine, who is running against Ramadan for City Council, also attended the meeting. But instead of speaking, he handed out campaign material in the back of the room, eliciting jeers from attendees at one point.

NYCHA representatives tried to assuage some concerns and said the development is necessary to restore financial security to the cash-strapped agency.

“We, like you, want to save not only Douglass houses, but all of the other public houses,” NYCHA Vice President of Community Operations Deidra Gilliard said.

Harris explained that NYCHA would own the land on which the private developments were built, but the developers would run the buildings.

“NYCHA remains owner of all public housing,” he said.

Many attendees left the hearing halfway through to discuss the development at a CB7 meeting happening simultaneously at Red Oak Apartments on 106th Street and Columbus Avenue.

“As a community board, we should act now,” Wymore, who introduced a resolution to delay the request for proposals, said at the CB7 meeting.

While that resolution was tabled for a later meeting, board members and attendees were solidly against the developments.

Rebecca Godlewicz, a representative for Borough President Scott Stringer, said Stringer wanted NYCHA to use the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, an approval process that would require more oversight from locals and elected officials.

“The best thing would be a moratorium,” Democratic District Leader Cynthia Doty said, but she said the agency needed to improve engagement with the public no matter the case.

Avantika Kumar contributed reporting.

eva.kalikoff@columbiaspectator.com | @evakalikoff

Barnard’s tuition to increase 2.9 percent

Jeremy Budd — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

Barnard’s tuition is increasing 2.9 percent for the 2013-2014 school year to $43,100, up from $41,850.

In an email to students, Dean Avis Hinkson announced that room and board, tuition, and fees would now total $59,000 for incoming first-year students. It will be the smallest overall percent increase since 2000.

The price for multiple rooms will jump 2.5 percent, the price for single-occupancy rooms will increase by 3.4 percent, and the price of a studio apartment will spike almost 21 percent from $12,000 to $14,500 per year.

“The costs of providing the best possible education for our students continue to rise, but we are trying our best to keep the increase as low as possible while maintaining our commitment to excellence,” Hinkson said in the email.

Hinkson said that Barnard considers outside factors in determining the tuition, including the national consumer price index, the Higher Education Price Index, and the median income of families that have household heads between the ages of 45 and 54, a demographic that Hinkson said “best represents families with college-age children.”

For the second year in a row, Barnard will not include health insurance in its comprehensive fee but will provide coverage to students receiving financial aid who are uninsured.

jeremy.budd@columbiaspectator.com | @buddjeremy

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month explores minority coalition-building

Tracey Wang — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

In order to overcome racial inequality, speakers at this year’s opening ceremony for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month stressed the need for coalition-building between the Asian community and other minority groups.

About 100 students attended the opening ceremony on Monday night in Roone Arledge Auditorium, which featured a performance by award-winning spoken-word poet Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai, a stand-up routine from comedian Hari Kondabolu, a musical performance from student duo Super Piano Brothers, and speeches from Columbia faculty.

Throughout the month, student groups have planned events that examine the Asian-American identity in America today, including a panel on post-9/11 legislation and its impact on South Asian Americans, a discussion on affirmative action, and a forum on health disparities within the Asian community.

The theme for this year’s APAHM celebration is Illuminate, which organizers say reflects their goal of highlighting storylines that impact the Asian Pacific American community.

Melinda Aquino, associate dean of multicultural affairs, said this month’s events are opportunities to voice untold narratives about the Asian Pacific Islander community.

“They’re opportunities to pause and fully absorb the immense history from which we have come from ... and more simply, as the theme of APAHM should suggest, to illuminate the stories we normally do not hear,” she said.

Avis Hinkson, dean of Barnard College, said that she loved the theme of Illuminate because it revealed a desire to explore and continue community-building.

“Illuminate seems to suggest to me that there was going to be a clarification, a shining the light on, a questioning, an opportunity for us to dig deeper in the hopes of gaining a greater sense of understanding,” she said.

Tsai, the keynote speaker for the opening ceremony, stressed the need for students to educate themselves on the history of Asian Americans in America.

“Other people are not going to do that for you—this is all on us,” she said. “It’s not in the history books that are taught in school.”

At one point, between performances of her poetry, Tsai described the origin of a popular phrase she learned as a child and how it relates to the history of oppression of Asian Americans in America: “He didn’t have a Chinaman’s chance.”

After researching the history of the phrase, Tsai learned that it originated in the late 1800s when there was great violence against Asians in America. Around the same time, she said, 400 Asian communities were forcibly expelled from the Pacific Northwest.

“Chinese people were being lynched,” she said. “So when you say ‘He didn’t have a Chinaman’s chance,’ that’s related to the history of lynching Chinese people and how they didn’t have a chance of surviving, of running away.”

Tony Lee, CC ’15, said that part of coalition-building is acknowledging the struggles that are universal to many minority groups.

“What brings us together are our common struggles,” he said. “Discrimination is an enemy that we’re all very familiar with and it’s an obstacle that is common in all our lives and our stories.”

The way to move forward, he said, is to come together.

“We recognize that by looking back on history and coming together and building coalition, and sticking by one another—that is the way to make progress,” he said.

Kristen Lu, CC ’14 and co-president of APAHM, said that this month’s events will focus on building pan-ethnic solidarity and partnerships with other groups on campus through mutual learning experiences.

“We want to make sure people really see that we’re not just this closed off Asian cultural club, but that we’re really about bringing this to the Columbia community as a whole,” she said.

tracey.wang@columbiaspectator.com | @TraceyDWang

Admins strive to improve teaching through proposed University-wide teaching center

Elena Nicolaou — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

A group of senior administrators is working to ensure that Columbia instructors receive better guidance on how to teach.

The current Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Teaching Center will serve as the model for the proposed University-wide Teaching and Communications Center, which the University endowment will fund in order to hire trained personnel, establish summer workshops for instructors, and provide equipment to help teachers use technology more effectively.

GSAS’s Teaching Center offers weekly programs and one-on-one consultations to graduate students, but tenure-track and tenured faculty remain largely uninvolved with the Teaching Center and few students attend sessions, GSAS Dean Carlos Alonso said.

“The biggest current challenge is that it is not visible as a resource to faculty,” Alonso said. “The absence of a teaching center implies that you can be a university without any dedicated attention or resource exclusively for teaching, and that has been the status quo at Columbia for many years.”

“I’ve mentioned to the trustees and the executive committee of the faculty senate the thought that it might be wise for us to look at what we’re doing in terms of teaching and to see if there isn’t a way that we can do it that’s more coordinated and more targeted,” Provost John Coatsworth said. “Hopefully in a year or two we can get to the point where we can design something that will be effective.”
GSAS Teaching Center Interim Director Mark Phillipson is working with Alonso and Coatsworth on the project.

Heather Von Volkinburg, who used to teach workshops at the Center, said that it should offer sessions to faculty instead of focusing exclusively on graduate students.

“If faculty are included in the workshops and they are a target audience, it would increase graduate student participation as well,” Von Volkinburg said.

Andreas Avgousti, a graduate student in the political science department, added that since professors essentially direct traffic to the Teaching Center, their participation is crucial to its success.

“When you get a TA-ship, you see the professor who is teaching the course, and all of your interactions are with that professor. So if that professors says, ‘I want you to go to the Teaching Center,’ then you will go,” Avgousti said. “If they don’t, and nine out of 10 times they don’t, then you’re not going to go.”

Alonso projected that by next fall, the expanded Teaching Center will have come a long way in its development.

“This is going to require consultation of faculty, fundraising, and understanding how such a teaching center will fit in the move the University is making into online education,” Alonso said. “In some cases, we’re trying to figure out how to partner with departments that have put a lot of energy into this effort to raise the quality of teaching.”

He also pointed out that raising the proficiency of graduate student instructors could lead to a higher quality of undergraduate education.

Columbia’s status as a research university, Avgousti said, takes the attention away from teaching itself.

“If you’re looking for professors who care about teaching, chances are, you’ll find them at Barnard. And that’s because of research,” he said. “Columbia gets its money from publications, and it has its name.”

Gustavo de la Casa, a Ph.D. candidate in international relations and a current TA, said that he supported the initiative because teaching and research complement one another.

“This is no either-or thing,” de la Casa said. “When you become a better teacher, you become a better communicator—and when you do that, you better convey the value of your research to the world.”

Joe Sheppard, a fourth-year graduate student in the classics department, said that he was pleased to see Coatsworth’s support for the Teaching Center.

“The Teaching Center is not taken very seriously, and I’m thrilled that there’s a formal commitment,” Sheppard said. “I don’t know how he’ll get people to buy into this, but I hope that he does.”

news@columbiaspectator.com | @ColumbiaSpec

Columbia housing costs rise for 2013-2014

Abby Abrams — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

Students beginning room selection Wednesday may want to take a look at the predicted costs of Columbia dorms for the 2013-14 school year.

Over the past five years, the percent increase in the cost of housing has more than doubled, from 2.5 to 5.3 percent. Students have not received any notification of the new housing costs for the coming year, despite the start of room selection.

The yearly rates listed on the Housing website are between $356 and $454 more than last year’s.

First-year housing jumped from $6,770 to $7,126. Small suites increased the most—adding $454 to the cost of last year’s $8,642 to reach $9,096.

“Each year, Undergraduate Housing posts early estimates of the forthcoming year’s housing fees. These estimates are designed to inform students’ housing choices as they move through room selection. The actual housing rate that will be charged is finalized later in the Spring,” Housing spokesperson Kristina Hernandez said in an email.

Last summer, housing rates rose relative to the estimates students saw when signing their occupancy agreements in the spring. The increase last year funded an “aggressive project plan” for summer renovations, according to Vice President for Student and Administrative Services Scott Wright.

Housing did not respond to questions regarding the lack of announcement or the intended use for the extra funds.

Upon hearing about the rate increases, Emily Pakulski, CC ’16, said that she felt upset that the changes were not made clearer.

“I don’t understand why the administration wouldn’t be transparent about it. We deserve to know how much it’s costing us,” she said, adding that “it’s as if they don’t want us to get mad ... If students aren’t notified, it seems like they’re hiding something.”

Others, however, acknowledged that living in New York is expensive and said they understood the need for an increase.

“I mean, housing in New York is expensive. I’ve lived in New York almost my entire life. No one lives in New York because it’s cheap and affordable,” Alexsander Akers, SEAS ’16, said.

Akers, who received the lowest lottery number for housing selection—10/2992—added that the price would not affect his decision about where to live next year.

“In the end, I won’t really have a choice on housing,” he said. “So I’m not looking at the cost.”

Some agreed that price was not their primary concern when choosing housing but still wished they knew more about the rate increase and what the money would be going toward.

“For me, the primary advantage to living on campus is the social experience, and I’m willing to pay a premium to enjoy that experience,” Allan Kang, CC ’14, said. But, he added, “I definitely think that they should have announced it and explained the reasons behind the change.”

In-Person Selection for groups begins Wednesday and runs through April 5 and from April 8-10, and Online Selection will take place April 17-30.

Avantika Kumar and Christian Zhang contributed reporting.

After publication, Housing spokesperson Kristina Hernandez released this statement: “Rate increases in Housing cover the cost of services provided by Housing and Facilities staff, as well as all capital improvements.” This summer, Hernandez said, major renovations will be conducted in Wallach, Shapiro, East Campus, and Ruggles to improve infrastructure, accessibility, and communal spaces.

abby.abrams@columbiaspectator.com | @abby_abrams

West Harlem Local Development Corporation expects increased interest in camp scholarship

Chris Meyer — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

The West Harlem Local Development Corporation is anticipating increased interest in the third year of its Cubs Camp scholarship program, which allows local families to enter a lottery to send their children to a Columbia summer camp for two weeks.

Under the Community Benefits Agreement signed with West Harlem residents in 2009, the University is required to fund scholarships for 25 children to attend the day camp, which focuses on athletics and team-building exercises, for one week only. Kofi Boateng, executive director of the WHLDC, said many parents were originally discouraged by such short terms.

“If you are a parent, you want the kid to go somewhere for more than one week,” Boateng said. “That’s something we struggle with, where parents like the program but want more weeks. That is why we’re doing a lottery.”

The adjustment in policy, which reduced the number of scholarships from 25 to 12 in order to comply with funding limitations, was initiated last year. But Boateng said many parents were not aware of the change last year, and expects this year’s response to be “fairly high.”

Cubs Camp, which also holds sessions over winter and spring breaks, offers activities ranging from golf lessons to arts and crafts, and charges families roughly $400 per week-long session.

When measured alongside other programs that the corporation handles in cooperation with the University, such as the recent disbursement of roughly $2 million in grants to nonprofits in Community District 9, the budget for the Cubs Camp scholarships seems insignificant. Nevertheless, Boateng said funding spots in the camps was valuable.

“Even if you impact one child, it is critical,” said Boateng, who referenced the importance of getting children off the streets and away from the influence of drugs. “You start with young kids. This way, they are away for the summer in a healthy environment, and they build trust with each other.”

Still, Boateng said the WHLDC is not averse to requesting more University funding if they see a significant spike in interest, especially if the policy change entices more parents to enter the scholarship lottery. The Cubs Camp is comprised of nine one-week sessions, and Boateng said the scholarship program would ideally allow West Harlem children to attend for at least a month.

Whether the corporation is able to secure additional funding will likely depend on how much interest they can attract.

“I’m always open to go back to Columbia and ask for more,” Boateng said. “If you just go by the agreement, obviously Columbia can take the position that they only agreed to a certain amount of funding. But if we use it well, we may be able to negotiate on a different basis.”

In a statement to Spectator, University spokesperson Victoria Benitez said the program reflects Columbia’s commitment to being an important community partner and supporter of the WHLDC.

“The West Harlem community negotiated to receive these benefits and the University is pleased to work through the WHLDC to ensure that local children have a great summer experience,” Benitez said in an email.

The deadline to enter the scholarship lottery is May 3, and winners will be notified on May 8. They will be able to attend the camp for any two weeks between June 10 and Aug. 9.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Boateng's name in one instance. Spectator regrets the error.

chris.meyer@columbiaspectator.com | @CMeyer201

At Cathedral Gardens, residents still stuck with leaks, construction issues

Avantika Kumar — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

After eight years, non-Barnard residents of Cathedral Gardens, which doubles as a dorm and as low-income housing, are still dealing with what they say is shoddy construction in the building—and disagreements between Barnard and the non-Barnard residents have kept repairs from moving forward.

Barnard and the residents are suing the building’s developer, Artimus Construction, over ongoing leaks and construction issues. But the lawsuit is moving slowly, and the parties are working toward a settlement.

There isn’t much overlap between the two populations—the building, on 110th Street and Manhattan Avenue, has separate entrances for the Barnard dorm rooms and the apartments. Decisions about maintenance must be agreed to by a board of non-Barnard residents, the Barnard administration, and a joint board with representatives from both groups.

Currently, Barnard, the non-Barnard board, and the joint board are all plaintiffs in the lawsuit, and are hoping for a settlement from Artimus to cover costs of repairs. According to Belina Anderson, the chair of the non-Barnard board, costs could run between $30,000 and $40,000 per resident.

Anderson said that all apartments were constructed at a lower quality more suitable to dorm rooms, with poor cabinets, flooring, paint, caulking, and leaks—including one apartment that has experienced leaks every time it has rained over the past six years.

“There’s no follow-through on quality control, on what happens to buildings after they’re built,” Anderson said. “I knew I wasn’t getting a luxury building, but I thought the developer was still equipped to create a building that can keep out the elements.”

“It makes you want to slap the developer for hiring people that obviously had no training or skills,” she said.

Artimus did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

On the other side of the building, a few Barnard residents have reported leaks, but no other major issues.

Although the lawsuit was filed a few years ago, it is still in its nascent stages—and the parties are hoping not to have to go to court, Anderson said. Despite extended negotiations, Artimus has not yet made a settlement offer covering a large enough portion of the damages, she said.

But Anderson said that the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development has agreed to help facilitate a settlement. The building was developed under the Cornerstone Program, an affordable housing initiative run by HPD. An HPD spokesperson declined to comment.

Meanwhile, the building has also been plagued by infighting between the non-Barnard board and the Barnard administration, and the process to begin repairs is “idling in neutral,” Anderson said. For instance, the joint board must enact certain repairs to comply with facade regulations, but it hasn’t been happening.

The joint board is structured to give Barnard three votes to the non-Barnard board’s two votes, which Anderson said gives the college a “perpetual majority.”

“What we’ve been trying to ask for from our Barnard members of the joint board is, ‘Can you please tell us when Barnard will move forward with us to complete the other phases?’” Anderson said. “We are extremely concerned about protecting this asset.”

Anderson added that Barnard has not yet met to “commit to a time frame for the whole project.” While both Barnard and the non-Barnard board had initially agreed to do the remediation in one large phase, Barnard later decided it wanted to do the project in installments, and still has not committed to a final timeline, Anderson said.

“They just don’t care as much as we do,” Anderson said of the Barnard administration.

But Barnard Vice President for Campus Services Gail Beltrone disputed Anderson’s account, instead saying the non-Barnard board had stalled several months ago when the joint board had decided to move forward with repairs on the most damaged non-Barnard units.

“The college board took the lead on soliciting bids and contractors,” Beltrone said in a statement. “However, not long after, the non-College board received advice to postpone these repairs, in an attempt to pursue alternative avenues for their portion of the repair costs.”

However, Beltrone added that the boards “are now in a position to move forward with these repairs and we look forward to beginning this effort,” as well as continuing litigation against Artimus.

Anderson said that Cathedral Gardens’ situation was indicative of the issues that arise when large institutions like Barnard get involved in city-run affordable housing.

“Is this such a great idea to allow big institutions … to, you know, participate in these HPD programs and end up being majority owners?” Anderson said.

avantika.kumar@columbiaspectator.com | @avantikaku