Columbia College Student Council members went door to door on Sunday night, introducing themselves to students and asking to hear their concerns in McBain, Carman, and John Jay halls.
Before and after the canvassing, council members convened in Lerner Hall’s Satow Room, the council’s second Sunday meeting under a new policy making attendance optional for council members.
CCSC Vice President of Communications Virat Gupta, CC ’12, estimated that 15 to 17 of the council’s 32 members showed up, which he said was “a little lower than expected.”
Vice President of Campus Life Jasmine Senior, CC ’12, said the low attendance was not necessarily a bad thing.
“We’re getting those kinds of people who are involved and who do care,” Senior said. “We’re getting people who are actually interested in completing all the floors, taking time with each individual student, and letting them know we care.”
Gupta said the canvassing was meant to move the council away from the “bubble” of issues it traditionally focuses on. He noted that council members sometimes fall out of touch with “small, tangible issues that affect student life” and wanted to use door-to-door outreach to raise awareness of what the council does.
“They need to know who we are, what we do, and how to get in contact with us,” Gupta said. “If they see us as a resource, we’re able to better do our jobs for them.”
The students council members talked to brought up a variety of problems, ranging from the narrowness of the spiral staircase in Ferris Booth Commons, to long lines at the Lerner package center, to the difficulty of registering for chemistry labs.
Gupta explained that the council visited McBain, Carman, and John Jay in order to target freshmen and sophomores. He noted that there was a particularly heavy turnout from freshman and sophomore council members.
Class of 2014 Representative Roko Rumora, though, worried that the canvassing effort did more harm than good. He said that if council members were going to knock on students’ doors and take up their time, they should have asked more “targeted” questions.
“What feedback we did get was really good, but I don’t think it was worth it on a larger scale, and I think a lot of people were frustrated to see us,” Rumora said. “No one’s issues were that crucial that it would outweigh people being more irritated with CCSC than they were before.”
Senior agreed that the canvassing had room for improvement, saying that next time around, “it’ll be a lot better.” She said, however, that the meeting was a good use of time because it raised awareness of the council’s role.
University Senator Kenny Durell, CC ’12, said the canvassing effort brought out issues the council would not otherwise have known about. For instance, he discovered that the Columbia University Rock Climbing Club wants to turn a squash court into a climbing wall.
“I think those are concerns that can be swept under the rug, because it’s one group amongst many, and they don’t think that CCSC is going to be the advocate for that,” Durell said. “I found a lot of kids I don’t think we would have reached if we hadn’t had this night.”
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