Columbia College Student Council representatives will no longer be required to attend CCSC meetings, in a policy change intended to make council members more productive.
The measure, which also makes committee membership optional, was introduced by CCSC President Aki Terasaki, CC ’12 after discussions with the executive board.
“One thing we also wanted to emphasize this semester was flexibility in being able to respond to issues as they come up in a very quick way,” Terasaki said. “Sometimes we get accused of dragging our feet too long through issues. This is one way for us to be a little more responsive.”
Vice President of Communications Virat Gupta, CC ’12, said he hopes the new measure will engage representatives individually and help them find “the places where they want to work as opposed to just pushing them into different areas.”
“We don’t expect every council member to be able to contribute to everything,” Vice President for Campus Life Jasmine Senior, CC ’12, said. “If housing’s what you want to do, we want to make sure you’re given the time and space to do that.”
Some council representatives, however, have questioned whether the measure will actually make the council more efficient. Class of 2013 Representative Alex Jasiulek, CC ’13 said that while CCSC often “doesn’t accomplish the majority of the things we discuss,” making meetings optional is not the solution.
Scheduling issues, Jasiulek said, already make it difficult to push initiatives through, and the meeting policy could worsen that problem by giving representatives even less time to work with each other. Instead, he thinks the board should take a more proactive approach to engaging its representatives.
“Sometimes the leadership either does not create the opportunity or does not engage with the opportunity to elicit responses,” Jasiulek said. “I definitely think that it’s worth a try, but I think making meetings not mandatory is not in itself going to fix the problem.”
Terasaki said feedback about the policy from CCSC representatives has been “mostly positive,” although the measure did not come up for a vote or discussion with the entire CCSC. Student Services Representative Karishma Habbu, CC ’13, who is not an executive board member, said the policy might not have been passed had the executive board brought it up for discussion first.
“I know that there’s been a lot of bitching,” Habbu said. “There are decisions that need to be made with the entire body, and there are decisions that, if put up for discussion, would never get done.”
Habbu said individual representatives have accomplished a lot this year, although she agreed that there are productivity problems on the council. She called the policy change “bold” and “out of the box.”
“Generally with CCSC, we like to follow certain protocols,” Habbu said. “I think people like to keep in those little boxes from year to year, so I applaud the fact that they’re going outside the box and trying something new.”
Senior said the executive board realized they needed to make significant changes to the council’s structure after talking with a meeting consultant.
“We definitely knew there was a problem there,” Senior said. “Something needed to be done.”
Terasaki said the policy will accompany changes in how the council runs its Sunday night meetings, which will mostly be town hall-style events focused on specific issues.
Gupta said the policy is “not just a meeting change,” but a “mindset change” for CCSC.
“It’ll be reflected in the way we conduct ourselves internally, sort of seeing ourselves as a cohesive organization and making sure that we’re doing real work for the students,” he said.
According to Terasaki, the policy will come up for review later in the semester. Senior hopes it will help less engaged representatives live up to their potential.
“It’s just that they weren’t doing what they are capable of doing, we thought,” Senior said. “We know that they can definitely bring something great to the table, so we want to encourage them and push them a bit.”
COMMENTS
Comments will be moderated in accordance with our comment policy