Student Affairs Committee
The Student Affairs Committee of the University Senate is the committee that represents student interests. It comprises the 24 voting Senators from the schools of Columbia University (including Barnard and Teachers College) and one non-voting observer from the Union Theological Seminary.
It is also coterminous with and functions as the student caucus or student voting bloc of the University Senate, as all student Senators are automatically members of the Student Affairs Committee. The Student Affairs Committee does not not function as a "super-student council". However, it is primus inter pares and first in the order of precedence of student governance, as it is both the senior body, and the only body at Columbia University representing students across all the schools.
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Name
According to the Senate's founding documents, the "Student Affairs Committee" once comprised sixteen students, while the "student caucus" comprised all twenty-four. In the mid-1990s, a merger was effected, and the entire twenty-four member body was (somewhat nonsensically) known as the "Student Affairs Caucus" until 2010. In 2010, it was definitively rebranded as the "Student Affairs Committee" to emphasize its open, deliberative nature, as opposed to identifying it strictly as a voting bloc.
Relationship with the Student Councils
The relationship between the Student Affairs Committee and other entities of the University Senate has often been misunderstood. From a strictly hierarchical reporting line perspective, a student council is created and empowered by a dean of student affairs, who reports to a dean of the school or faculty, and then on to the Provost, the President, and the Trustees. The University Senate, on the other hand, is led by the President and its actions are final upon the concurrence of the Trustees. Statutorily, student councils have no jurisdiction whatsoever over affairs of the University Senate.
Clashes over Jurisdiction
Attempted Impeachment
The Engineering Student Council attempted to "impeach" the undergraduate Senator from the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science in April 2009. However, they couldn't actually "impeach" a Senator. Merely describing the proceedings as "impeachment" and coming up with the rules and processes for such proceedings is meaningless. The most a council could do is remove the Senator from that council. In the end, the only way a Senator can leave office is by serving until the conclusion of his or her term, no longer being registered in the faculty in which he or she is elected, or by a duly constituted recall process in accordance with the by-laws of the University Senate. In the end, the University Senate did not recognize the validity of the Engineering Student Council's proceedings, and categorically ignored their findings.
Academic Calendar
The Engineering Student Council and Columbia College Student Council attempted to use the University Senate as a vehicle to present and approve their "limited early start" modification to the academic calendar in spring 2010. Representatives of the councils were given an opportunity to present to the Senate, and questioned by the faculty on the practicality of their proposals. The Senate elected to not pursue their proposal. The councils then passed "resolutions" demanding that the University implement the proposal.[1] The Senate ignored this resolution, and then proceeded to implement its own compromise allowing students who have exams falling on December 23 to reschedule their exams.[2]
Division of Engineering Seats
In late spring 2010, the Engineering Graduate Student Council petitioned the Senate's Elections Commission to "divide" the two seats allocated to SEAS into both a graduate and an undergraduate seat. Despite protests that "they have no authority", the Senate's Elections Commission actually did have the authority to subdivide its constituencies as it saw fit, since the seats do not "belong" to any student council. The ESC refused to include the question of whether the seats should be split in its elections process. The Senate then ran its own referendum. The seats were restructured by the beginning of the fall 2010 semester.[3][4]
2+2 Principle
The Student Affairs Committee has striven to clarify the boundaries between issues of jurisdiction between the student councils and the University Senate. A clear understanding of these and other issues is the only way to set the groundwork for a future of more productive and constructive relations. The Student Affairs Committee formulated the "2+2 Principle" in 2010. The principle states that Senate issues are "matters of policy which affect two or more schools in which decision is required by two or more administrative authorities."
A more detailed explanation of the principle follows:
- Matters of policy: The University Senate deals only with matters of policy. It does not concern itself with programming. In other words, it does not plan parties.
- Two or more schools: Taken directly from the Senate's by-laws and enacting language.
- Two or more administrative authorities: In deference to and understanding of the many shared administrative resources and student interests among the four undergraduate schools, which are technically separate schools despite having one student community.
External links
References
- ↑ Councils vote in favor of early academic year, Columbia Spectator, 30 March 2010
- ↑ USenate writes proposal to allow Dec. 23 exams to be rescheduled, Columbia Spectator, 16 April 2010
- ↑ ESC: Study Days, Senate Takeovers, and Scary Dorm Storming, Bwog, 30 March 2010
- ↑ USenate: Undergrads vs. Grads?, Bwog, 17 April 2010
