Name: Wesley Hu
Party: Low Beach Party
Bio: Hey, I’m Wesley! I’m a CC’20 student studying Math and Philosophy. I’m involved with Lion Community Health Initiative and Community Impact. Currently, I serve as the Publicity Chair of CCLBA and Internal Social Chair of Lambda Phi Epsilon. In my free time, I enjoy watching anime, coaching debate, lifting weights, and buying/selling memes. I love being connected with everyone, and I hope to serve on CCSC to make it as easy as possible for all students to be able to speak out and connect with student council. Hope to see you around sometime, even if it’s just on Facebook!
Platform: As a first year student, for most of this year, I felt unsure about how to reach out to representatives or to get involved. Ultimately, the VP of Communications has to facilitate the best conditions for the rest of the students to become more involved with student council. With Low Beach Party, I’d be doing my best to reach out to students from all angles.
Increase Connection between the Student Body and CCSC
• Live streaming meetings: CCSC did in the past but doesn’t live stream meetings anymore; making these videos public would help to best maintain transparency and trust.
• Weekly Facebook posts and emails, which will include infographics, meeting minutes, meeting summaries, updates on initiatives, and more!
• Polls and surveys with gift card incentives to respond regarding students’ opinions on council decisions, student events, etc.
Improve General Alcohol and Sexual Violence Awareness Training
• A safe and inclusive campus for all students is of the utmost priority – we need to take concrete steps towards increasing awareness about campus issues and tackling them gradually one by one.
• For general sexual violence education, we will maintain the variety of options Columbia offers for satisfying the requirement, but we will incentivize in-person attendance at workshops and forums, to ensure not only participation but full engagement.
• Review, revise, and revamp requirements for campus groups, Greek life, and sports teams to ensure proper training attendance across the board is met. Incorporate student thoughts about group attendance and feedback at training events.
Accessibility of Career Resources
• Columbia offers an incredibly diverse set of opportunities! Low Beach Party will make sure the student body can fully take advantage of them all.
• Adding a section to an updated CCSC website with a short summary of all the CCE events, including information about internship events, summaries of the CCSC website, etc.
Health and Wellness
• Low Beach Party will be reaching out to all sorts of health clubs on campus to plan a wellness fair!
• Goal: making clear available resources for the student body, and understanding the type of help and services they can seek
• We’ll be including all sorts of types of free events, such as Stressbusters back rubs, games, mini-exercise sessions, giveaways on cool products for students, and more!
Increase dialogue with marginalized and underrepresented student groups on campus
• Inclusion is always the goal, and sometimes systematic or structural barriers must be confronted in order to work towards it. Low Beach Party is committed to doing all we can for marginalized and underrepresented student groups on campus.
• Monthly meetings with clubs representing marginalized identities and underrepresented student groups on campus
• Open forums on student issues – mental health, campus environment, etc.
• Add a line of input on the CPS website – the direct question suggestion line will have a maximum 48 hour mandatory response time by a member of CCSC.
Name: Sreya Pinnamaneni
Party: Alliance
Bio: I’m Sreya Pinnamaneni, a first-year in CC studying History from Orlando. I’m interested in political analysis, writing for Columbia Undergrad Law Review, Columbia Political Review, and Roosevelt. I’m also driven by the appeal of campus service: I teach sexual consent through Peer Health Exchange, develop curriculums for Youth for Debate, and am a member of CU Food Bank, Gender-Based Misconduct Prevention Task Force, and Kappa Alpha Theta. Each of these organizations has exposed me to diverse student voices. As VP Communications, I hope to create bottom-up change on campus.
Platform: Facilitating Administrative Transparency
Alliance will work to ensure transparency from the administration and its services. We aim to make students feel heard and accounted for by pushing administrators to interact frequently and directly with student leaders and to provide rigorous justification for wide-reaching policy changes. In the face of the evolving political climate, Alliance is additionally committed to the clarity of resources, specifically stances and tangible support systems for international and minority students.
Funding at Columbia University Transparency
We will also work to ensure that the Funding at Columbia University (F@CU) process, wherein all student groups and class councils receive funding allocations from the student activities fee, is more clear to the general student body. Alliance hopes to make this information more readily accessible to all students both to understand and engage.
Uplifting Student Voices
Student voices are often lost among the institutional processes required to enact change, yet Alliance is committed to overturning this barrier. We will work to provide students outside of student council access to forums and discussions with administrators, including open Town Hall meetings with Deans across departments. Alliance seeks to provide easy access to open conversations surrounding policy and cultural issues on campus. These forums will uplift the voices of student organizations and communities while instilling a feeling of administrative accessibility in every Columbia student.