'''Welcome to ''WikiCU''!'''
We hope you will contribute much and well.
You will probably want to read the [[Help:Contents|help pages]].
Again, welcome and have fun! [[User:Cam2171|-|- cam2171 -|-]] 22:08, 19 November 2012 (EST)

==Were you looking for me?==
I'm the founder. {{User:Reaganaut/sig}} 22:37, 21 November 2012 (EST)

Thanks for contacting me! I was just looking for someone involved, I ended up with meeting with Cliff, who works on campus. He answered all my questions!

==Greetings==
Welcome! Organizing people sounds pretty cool. I've made an edit to your wikipedia link in the [[Mechanical Engineering Department]] article. That's a neater way of linking to wp without having to use external URLs. Also, you may find my article on researching and writing useful: [[Research guide and resources for new authors]].

==Uris Recycling==
Amusing edits. Is there anything in Spec about that, or is it just good-old-fashioned campus scuttlebutt? The fact is that demolishing an already constructed large building in the center of campus would be incredibly wasteful of resources, no matter how ugly the thing is. And at this point, if anyone rolled up with enough money to fund a building from scratch, Low Library would kindly redirect them to a number of other projects requiring urgent funding, like more Manhattanville buildings. [[User:Absentminded|Absentminded]] 11:10, 26 March 2013 (EDT)

I didn't add the part about the demolition, my edit only concerned the various parties around Uris fighting for space inside of it. [[User:The_Engineer|The_Engineer] 16:54, 28 March 2013 (EDT)

==2013 Columbia Wikithon==

You should come by and help out. This Wednesday, from 7 to midnight, a group of people will be working on WikiCU together. There'll be Dino BBQ as well as coffee and cookies. [[User:Cds2148|cds2148]] 15:35, 22 April 2013 (EDT)

==[[Steven Castellano]]==
*I eagerly look forward to finding out more... [[User:Admin|Admin]] 14:28, 15 May 2013 (EDT)
**Is he your god? [[User:Cds2148|cds2148]] 19:02, 5 August 2013 (EDT)
**Yes (I don't know how do to the time stamp thing though)

User talk:The Engineer

2013-08-10T07:59:22Z

The Engineer: /* Steven Castellano */

Scott Wright

2013-08-10T07:54:55Z

The Engineer: Word of Warning

'''Scott Wright''' is the Vice President of [[Student and Administrative Services]], which is the umbrella office for basically everything you interact with on a daily basis that isn't a professor. He's actually a very approachable and nice guy, despite heading the offices that tend to get the most flak from students, such as [[Housing Services|Housing]] and [[Dining Services|Dining]].

FYI - he likes hockey, so find an excuse to talk to him about it when you see him. Unless you know nothing about hockey, in which case say nothing. (Note: when he does find an excuse to talk about something, he will talk A LOT. Avoid getting him started if you are meeting with him to get something accomplished student government related)

[[Category:Administrators]]

Steven Castellano

2013-08-05T08:50:10Z

The Engineer:

[[Image:SteveC_sleeping1.jpg|thumb|240px|Steven doing work late at night with friends]]

'''Steven Castellano''' [[Columbia College|CC]] '[[2013|13]] is from Middletown, [[New Jersey]] and majored in Biophysics. He was one of the head coordinators for [[CUE]], the [[CCSC]] Academic Affairs Representative, a leading member of the [[Student Wellness Project]], a TA for Biology, a researcher who engineered cells in [[Fairchild]] and is pretty much the most helpful and caring person you'll ever meet on this earth. A good way to sum up his dedication to others is to either imagine him as the person who will A) Drop everything he is doing when you need him there for you even if he is in the middle of a paper and you call at 4am or B) be that person on the team who gives everyone direction and inspiration, but when they aren't able to pull their weight, he goes ahead and picks up their slack without ever complaining.

==Student Council==
During Steven's first year at Columbia, he joined CCSC's Student Life committee, naively believing that throwing better parties would improve community at Columbia. Afterwards, he joined the policy committee, and hoped to use this experience to win a seat in the University senate during his race in his sophomore year. He came in dead last<ref>http://spectrum.columbiaspectator.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/CCSC-2011-Election-Results.pdf</ref>. He his junior year he used [https://www.facebook.com/StevenCastellanoforAcademicAffairs social media] and won the Academic Affairs Representative position.<ref>http://spectrum.columbiaspectator.com/spectrum/the-212-wins-ccsc-executive-board-election</ref>

In one of Steven's first successes, he worked with the [[registrar]] to release the schedules of [[finals]] earlier. He, with the Academic Integrity Task Force, then though of implementing an honor code. This would include an honor pledge to be recited by all incoming students during NSOP, a signing of an honor code, NSOP programming about academic integrity and wellness, and a short version of this pledge to appear on all Columbia Blue Books. Despite all the student councils passing a resolution that favored these measured, ESC decided to rescind their vote on the grounds that such an effort needed to be discussed more with the students, and that ESC members were not aware of how well the administration knew of the plan.<ref>http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2013/04/24/engineering-student-council-rescinds-vote-honor-code</ref>. Steve and other members of CCSC were surprised with the reversal<ref>http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2013/04/26/ccsc-members-surprised-confused-esc-reversal-honor-code</ref> as the discussion had been publicly documented since November<ref>http://spectrum.columbiaspectator.com/news/this-week-in-esc-don-the-dean</ref>, the administrators who would implement the program were informed, the organizations are called ''student'' councils for a reason, and ESC did not bring up any of their concerns when they initially <del>rubber stamped</del> passed the resolution. The intention was to use the honor code as a way of uniting the four schools, but with ESC's sudden departure, Steven went ahead and convinced [[SGA]], CCSC, and [[GSSC]] to pass a version of the proposal without a clause stating that all four schools had to be included.

[[Image:Waitlist.JPG|left|thumb|240px|Steven undermining ESC's legitimacy like a bau5]]
As if relations with ESC weren't peachy already, Steve asked them for help implementing a course waitlist. Since none of the ESC members were free to attend his meetings with the registrar's [[Barry Kane]], Steve recruited a non-ESC [[SEAS]] student to help him get engineering input on the issue. Steve's past action with finals schedules proved useful; the registrar said they would be able to implement most of his suggestions.<ref>http://bwog.com/2013/05/14/desperation-formalized/</ref> The last step was to present this completely-safe, no-brainer plan to the councils, and of course, ESC found something wrong with it. They argued that it was more fair for students to relentlessly click refresh instead of using a waitlist because it ensured the people who wanted the course the most would get it and people who had better registration times wouldn't be able to hog up all the waitlist spots. Forget the fact that people actually want to use <del>engineering</del> technology to reduce work in their day, and that it would be in a senior's best interest to drop a course if they got into too many from the waitlist. ESC again felt there hadn't be enough discussion about the matter among the students, and they advised the registrar to refrain from implementing any new technologies over the summer, insisting that they engage in negotiations in fall 2013 for possible implementation in 2014 (though the most likely reason is that ESC figured any progress from CCSC would make ESC's lack of progress less embarrassing). Luckily for us, the registrar doesn't take anyone's shit when it comes to making progress.

Though less drama filled than his honor code proposal, his first-semester Pass/D/Fail was probably the most controversial. During his election, students asked him to implement academic policies to reduce student stress. He concluded the root of the problem is that students placed alot of the stress on themselves by taking a bajillion credits and tying the worth classes to GPA instead of learning the material. He first considered trying to lower the credit limit, but assessed this would be spurned by students. Instead, he looked at how other schools implemented a pass/fail policy. He compiled [http://www.wikicu.com/images/d/d1/PassDFailProposal.pdf this report] which outlined the strength and weakness of the policy. The general consensus is that students would put less work into their classes, but they would learn for learning sake, and that students who come from disadvantage from high school would have a semester to adjust to the rigors of colleges without worrying about it forever harming their gpa. Pass/Fail would not apply to core classes. CCSC passed the proposal 23-4.<ref>http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2013/04/09/ccsc-calls-mandatory-passdfail-first-semester</ref>.

==Student Wellness==
Aside from his student council policies aiming to improve student wellness, Steven was also a very active member of the [[Student Wellness Project]]. He arranged the Student Wellness Summit, which brought together many of Columbia's leadership organizations to find root problems with student wellness, and brainstorm actions to directly improve wellness. [[Deantini]] said he would support the 3 solutions the summit deemed the most effective, but want very specific reforms, not things like "make school less stressful". Out of this summit, and meetings with people interested in drafting the letter, he finalized [http://www.scribd.com/doc/138645200/SWP-Wellness-Report this wellness report], calling for a reform of NSOP, a revamp of [[Columbia Psychological Services]], and a Pass/D/Fail Policy. Long term changes resulting from this report are unclear, but at least admin were receptive to its ideas.<ref>http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2013/05/06/administrators-receptive-student-wellness-project-recommendations</ref>

As a coordinator of CUE, Steven had a large role improving the program. He made a bajillion page coordinator guide that guided every aspect of running CUE (ran almost or over 100 pages)and compiled survey data to make suggestions to administration on how to improve the program. During CUE week, he was known for making an effort to get to know each and every CUEer on top of his administrative responsibilities in the program. This translated to staying up till 6am every night doing everything from talking to students about life at Columbia, to yelling at Mcbain athletes who threw water at a group of his fellow CUEers hanging out in the shaft, and really just anything to make students feel included. This is the main reason why he always brought First-Years to his senior parties. His involvement in the program is also why he was quite peeved when administrators decided to house students in their permanent dorms during CUE week instead of as a community in Mcbain.<ref> http://bwog.com/2013/07/18/community-building-and-the-curious-cue-quandary/</ref> [[Terry Martinez]] and [[Scott Wright]] will receive hell for this. On a related noted, despite his undying devotion to CUE (his senior wisdoms CU Admirers was to CUE) he still hasn't updated the wikicu CUE page.

After the suicide of Martha Corey-Ochoa, Administration responded by simply reminding its students that certain services were available and that CPS was open for 3 more hours on a Saturday.<ref>http://www.wikicu.com/images/4/4e/Adminresponse.JPG</ref> Steven, still extremely sleep deprived from sleeping 2 hours a night during CUE, worked with Student Wellness Project to arrange an open discussion event where students could be in small groups with others who were also affect by Martha's death.<ref>http://bwog.com/2012/08/28/open-discussion-to-be-held-tonight-in-john-jay-lounge/</ref>

During Steven's first year at Columbia, he went through the hell we call [[Physics 2801]] and was the type who did all the [[Lit Hum]] reading because he found it so damn awesome. He spent a lot of his first semester cramped up in Butler, spending most of his free time studying. His first semester of his senior year he took about 27 credits. After this semester, he wrote [http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2013/01/28/less-more this op-ed]] encouraging students to enjoy the college experience, stress out less, and drop a class. This op-ed was very well received. A classmate even translated it into Chinese, and shared it to renren.com where it has over 50,000 views!<ref>http://blog.renren.com/share/449275890/15267283368</ref>

==Awards==
Steven was inducted<ref>http://bwog.com/2013/04/30/phi-beta-kappa-inductees-for-2013-announced/</ref> into [[Phi Beta Kappa]]. He was a recipient of the [[King's Crown Leadership Award]] for Ethics & Morality.<ref>http://spectrum.columbiaspectator.com/spectrum/columbia-releases-this-years-award-winners-and-honorees</ref> and he won the Alumni Association Achievement Award, which has a description so badass and fitting for Steve that I have to include it right here. "A trophy, in the form of a Columbia lion, awarded annually to the member of the senior class who is judged to be most outstanding for qualities of mind, character, and service to the College."

Despite all of Steven's awards and stellar grades, he shared a bit too much with [[Mortimer Adler]]. Steven's concern at the end of his [http://bwog.com/2013/05/18/senior-wisdom-steven-castellano/#more-115855 senior wisdom] came true, and he failed to graduate because he neglected to take his [[swim test]]!!!!

==Other Shenanigans==
Aside from kicking ass in politicking around Columbia and easing student stress, he is well known for his crazy dance moves. He is objectively the best at "The Wobble". Other than that, he is also extremely clumsy. Many wonder how he was able to walk the stage without tripping over something. He inadvertently spills something on someone 2.357 times per party, but we still love him, and have funny stories to tell because of him.

== References ==
<references />

[[Category:People]]
[[Category:Columbia College alumni]]
[[Category:Class of 2013]]

Steven Castellano

2013-08-05T03:26:45Z

The Engineer: waitlist email

waitlist email

Steven Castellano

2013-08-02T07:55:31Z

The Engineer:

Steven Castellano

2013-08-02T07:32:01Z

The Engineer:

Steven Castellano

2013-08-02T07:14:22Z

The Engineer: /* Student Wellness */

Steven Castellano

2013-08-02T06:52:49Z

The Engineer: