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SEAS Support

  • Establish a better communication channel between ESC, student body, and the administration

  • Establish a better advising tool, such as a Piazza Page and construct and strengthen SEAS peer advising

  • Increase student spaces and designate specific spaces for certain student groups (LGBTQ+ Students, Muslim Students, and Students of Color). In giving these groups specific spaces, Lerner Hall will be a fully functional student center

  • Advocate for better support from disability services (i.e. making all buildings more accessible). Onur will start with the reconstructing of the Math Building since it is the only building that is inaccessible on the Morningside Heights Campus for people with walking disabilities.

 

Mental Health

  • Incorporate the student body, the administration, and ESC into the ongoing conversation on mental health

  • Increase the amount of appointments that could be made at CPS

  • Increase CPS hours and make it more accessible

  • Construct a 24/7 mental health hotline for the use of undergraduate students. The calls will be answered by mental health professionals.

 

Center for Career Education:

  • Increase and diversify the companies presented in the career fairs

  • Improve alumni relations

  • Advocate for a portal to reach out to alumni to encourage and assist networking

 

ESC

  • Continue the ongoing conversation on diversifying the council and representing the student-body

  • Increase student unity with other undergraduate student councils

  • Work closely with Engineering Graduate Student Council to create a unity between undergraduate and graduate programs.

ONUR CALIKUSU For President

As ESC president, Onur is excited to empower the student body through transforming Engineering Student Council into a center that is more accessible. Onur wants to bring more transparency into ESC and build stronger and more accessible communication tools between ESC, the student body, and the administration. In addition, Onur wants to increase the student space and support student groups — including LGBTQ+, Muslim, and People of Color — through advocating for student space and better advising. Most importantly, Onur is passionate about advocating for mental health. Onur believes that mental health is not an isolated issue and is analytical of the issue on both a micro and macro level. Lack of student space and support to students with marginalized identities contribute to overall mental health issue on our campus. This issue is furthered with heavy SEAS requirements. Onur wants to have a constructive conversation about mental health with the administration and wants to include the student body into this serious and important issue. Onur also wants to improve the Center for Career Education and diversify the companies presented in career fairs.

CAMILA SOLIS-CAMARA For VP Finance

Camila hopes that her plans as VP Finance will reduce the stress surrounding SEAS students. She wants to allocate funds in more efficient ways that prioritize students’ mental health. She hopes that her plans will allow students to spend less time worrying about financing their college experience and more time enjoying it.

CPS Funding

  • Work with fellow VPs and administration to ensure that CPS funds increase

    • Create 24/7 CPS call center

    • Eliminate cap on the number of student visits

 

Student and Student Group Funding

  • Work with VP Communications to increase advertising for Capital Investment Fund and Alternative Break Program so more students apply

    • CIF funds large-scale equipment/supplies for clubs and student groups

    • ABP funds students who develop civic engagement projects and need money for traveling

  • Expand University Chaplain Co-Sponsorship Fund so that more events can be hosted for students of color and for LGBTQ+

    • This fund gives financial and administrative support to programs that focus on religion, spirituality, race, ethnicity, sexual identity, gender, social justice, and community service

    • Data shows that Columbia students of color and LGBTQ+ suffer the most from stress

  • Expand SEAS Dean Travel Fund so more students can pursue national and international opportunities

    • Right now, award can total only up to 50% of costs

    • Work with VP Communications to ensure more people know about this opportunity and are informed about deadlines

 

Bacchanal Funding

  • Talk to public safety with the goal of increasing the amount of people that are allowed to attend

    • Columbia charges everyone a student life fee and part of this fee is used to pay for Bacchanal, so more people should have a right to attend

  • Pressure administration to redistribute money so that it is spent more efficiently and safety costs are brought down (which would increase the budget for the artists!)

  • Act with JCCC to come up with solutions to fund event in case of emergency

    • In Spring 2016, emergency funding was needed and Bacchanal was threatened of being cancelled

 

Religious Funding

  • Fund a Muslim religious advisor and a designated prayer space

 

Financial Aid

  • Create a financial aid iOS/Android application

    • App would allow students to link a calendar with important financial aid deadlines to their phones

    • App would allow students to type in how much they spend per month on each category (food, school supplies, etc) so that they can keep better track of and better administer their expenses

    • App would keep track of which documents have been submitted and still need to be submitted to reapply for financial aid

                                                          

Internships and Jobs

  • Create a Google Doc for each engineering major, share specific-major doc with alumni so interested alumni can declare where they’re working and provide contact information. A static version of the doc will be sent to students with declared majors so they can use this resource to network and obtain mentoring

Academics & School Pride:

  • Keeping the 4th,5th, and 6th floors of Butler Library open 24/7 during midterm and final seasons

  • Organizing a panel for Graduate Schools where graduate schools come to campus so that students make better and well aware decisions about their futures in collaboration with Center for Career Education (CCE)

  • Giving out SEAS sweatshirts to first 500 students who order due to the fact that no student should have to pay to wear their school gear with pride

 

Technology:

  • Setting up an advising portal like Piazza, where students can ask questions regarding advising and check for already asked questions through a search bar for advisors and/or students to answer in order to fasten the exchange of information 24/7

  • Creating a tutoring system, where professors, assistant professors, TAs, and students can provide their contact details and declare the concepts for which they can provide tutoring, and student body of Columbia can use the website to request tutoring

  • Building a website for club/organization collaborations on which clubs can post events that would require collaborating with another club (i.e. an event between CORE and CFIG), and students can be aware of ongoing events by different clubs around campus

 

Dining:

  • Creating a website on which every Columbia organization would declare if their event will serve refreshments in collaboration with UEM

  • Making sure that there are more options to eat healthy at JJ’s Place

  • Placing prepared sandwiches and salad for breakfast-to-go at JJ’s Place

  • Setting up a breakfast-to-go station at Ferris

  • Extending Flex purchases to including but not limited to Joe’s, Starbucks, Five Guys and to incoming Shake Shack

  • Changing the coffee stations in Ferris, JJ Dining Hall, and JJ’s Place to either Starbucks or Caribou Coffee stations

 

Transportation:

  • Broadening Flex utilization to Uber/Lyft/Via/Juno and offering discounts/coupons for Columbia students

  • Setting up an Airport Shuttle service two days prior to starts and ends of Fall/Winter/Spring/Summer breaks twice a day

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Housing:

  • Increasing the amount of free proxy per academic year from 1 to 4

  • Ending laundry expenses by providing detergent in laundry rooms for students to use

 

Health & Fitness:

  • Establishing an emergency call center for students with disabilities that will operate 24/7

  • Increasing the semester quota of getting CPS appointments from 10 to 20

  • Creating a 24/7 professional call center for students with mental distress

  • Using the 6th floor of Lerner Hall by moving Financial Aid office to another building as an extra fitness center operating 24 hours after realizing that Lerner was meant to be a student space; however, is currently mostly used by administration

LAL UNCU For VP Student Life

As VP of Student Life, Lal wants to ensure that each student gets the most out of their four years. She aims to make improvements in sundry areas whilst incorporating technology to make students' life easier in a school with a heavy course load. She strives to emphasize the students’ needs, complaints, and desires in her endeavors.

ANA HUGENER For VP Communications

As VP of Communications Ana hopes to strengthen the effectiveness of conversation and communication within the Columbia community. This would include conversations between students and the administration but also increased interaction within the student body itself. Obtaining this result will partially stem from campus-wide transparency but also from broadening existing programs to create a more welcoming campus atmosphere.

CSA:

  • Piazza page to have online and live CSA advising – the concept of this Piazza page can extend to other forms of advising including CPS and ISSO

  • Have a greater presence of Peer-Advising in conjunction with CSA advisors

    • Create a Mentorship program where Freshman/Sophomores are connected with Juniors/Seniors of their major to ask relevant questions

 

Mental Health:

  • Organize a widespread, thorough, and anonymous survey of students’ opinion of mental health on campus and how it should be addressed

  • Bring into effect the improvements students have already been asking for but are moving too slowly to implementation

  • Improve communications between students and Psychological Services, which will encourage students to communicate their concerns

 

School-Wide Events:

  • Enhance the publicity of events specifically for SEAS students to guarantee all SEAS students who could be interested in an event are informed of it

  • Work to bring greater diversity to SEAS Career Fairs to ensure all majors are represented

 

Transparency

  • Work to diffuse the tension between the administration and students by making communications between the two more clear, direct, and understanding

  • Having a live feed from Senate meetings with the administration so that all students can witness relevant and important conversations that are happening at Columbia

 

Internships and Jobs

  • Propose an update to the CCE website and make the process of making an appointment simpler and quicker

  • Maintain bonds with alumni who volunteer their contact information so that students can use them as a resource in their job search

AARON THOMPSON For VP Policy

As ESC VP of Policy, Aaron hopes to make SEAS more inclusive and smooth out the path of students through the difficult engineering curriculum. Focusing on mentorship, improving mental health, and better advisement, Aaron aims to improve the life of all engineering students at Columbia.

Mentorship

  • The creation of a new mentorship program involving all students in the engineering school

    • Juniors and seniors would be paired with sophomores and first-years in their major, where they exchange information and older students can offer guidance as they progress through their curriculum.

    • Underclassmen can get valuable information about classes and learn about what’s to come in their major.

    • Facilitate students sharing information about internship opportunities and companies they’re involved in.

  • Enhance the relationship between students and alumni working in industries they’re interested in

    • Establish a stronger alumni network that students can actually participate in

    • This will certainly ease the process of students trying to break into industries

 

 

Mental Health

 

  • Establish a 24/7 call center for CPS where students may retain anonymity and comfort while working through problems

  • Eliminate the cap on students’ CPS visits

    • It appears counterintuitive that people who need help the most are limited in how much help they can actually receive.

  • Minimize needless stress from rigorous courses by encouraging better professor-student relationships

  • Establish an open student space without the presence or interference of the administration. Currently, no such space exists on campus.

  • Bring in external, professional psychologists to meet with students to help them cope with loss

 

 

Advisement

 

  • Give sophomores and first-years better opportunities to speak with advisors in their desired major

  • Improve the shadow declaration process where students can actually see opportunities for research or internships in their specific major

  • Support the establishment of an advising Piazza page to eliminate the incidence of poor or ineffective academic advice

PLATFORM

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