GSSC to propose task force for greater GS student engagement
Wondering why there aren’t more task forces at Columbia? Sad that GS students aren’t more involved on campus? Madina Toure reports with highlights from last night’s General Studies Student Council meeting:
GS Student Involvement: GSSC president Jackie Thong and VP of Communications Jennifer Wisdom are planning on meeting with Student Governing Board Chair Barry Weinberg to discuss the proposal for a task force to increase GS student involvement on campus.
The first phase will consist of interviews with student leaders who are involved on campus. The second phase will consist of focus groups of GS students discussing their level of involvement on campus. They will subsequently send out a survey to students and come up with a recommendation. They plan on discussing the proposal with other student governing boards as well.
Joint Council Co-Sponsorships: The council passed a motion to approve the following contributions to the joint co-sponsorship committee:
- $1,668.48 for the Parliamentary Debate Society
- $2,188 for Mental Health Awareness Week
- $1,400 for Men’s Volleyball
- $750 for the Columbia Iranian Students Association
Other Ivies:
The council also passed a motion approving the spending of $150 for the IvyCouncil Co-sponsorship to fund a few students. A total of eight GS students will be attending this year.
The average starting GS student is 30 years old (an average of 11 years post high school according to their website.) Do they really want to hang out on campus with teenage undergrades? Isn’t this a waste of time.
GSers do, and perhaps because of these dismissive impressions (on both sides of the divide) we don’t. I’ll grant you that some GSers don’t want to have the college experience, but anywhere from 25 to 90% of 2,000 GS students are dying to be involved and they’re badly underrepresented. Props to Barry Weinberg and SGB for setting an inclusive and mutually beneficial example here.
Both GSers and traditional undergrads are exceptional Columbia students. Surely we can engage in a social setting or kick ass in a professional setting together. In my opinion, the primary reason there are so few connections between both sides is that they’re segregated outside of classes from the moment they enroll.
also screw the current GSSC, as always, for needing SGB to prompt them
My draft take-aways or learning oetcomus for EnvS 484 History of Energy are:At the end of this course, students will be able to:•Explore and discuss the history of humanity’s relationship to energy•Build a timeline showing transitions in energy sources•Describe and discuss the current U.S. and world energy situation•Create and describe their own energy plan for the future of the U.S.•Create and deliver presentations that teach course material to other students•Learn to use and develop mastery of online learning technologies and softwareWould love comments, thoughts and suggestions to help refine these.
The three take-aways for my business wiritng course are something like this:1. Students will be able to create a professional ethos. We’ll practice creating a professional ethos with every public communication we have during the class (to include discussion boards, etc.). The hope is that by studying what ethos is, how it is created, and examining examples of individual ethos and brand ethos (or identity), students will leave the class being able to establish themselves as trustworthy and credible professionals (on an individual level) and be able to apply techniques of individual ethos to creating an ethos (or identity) for the business they will work for in their future career.2. Students will be able to understand [not the best word here, but my brain isn't working well this morning] the different rhetorical choices a professional business writer must make these rhetorical choices are determined by audience (discourse community?), development of ethos, application of pathos, and an understanding of logos (and other techniques). The rhetorical choices will help them to make appropriate decisions about genre, document design, vocabulary, etc.3. Students will practice wiritng in different genres commonly used in business communication. These include traditional formats (like letters, memos, and resumes) but also include social media and other forms of electronic communication (like emails, texting, and instant messaging).Thanks in advance for the feedback!Barb
I have been very much involved with activities on campus pretty much since my coming to GS – and, in fact, have risen to leadership level on one.
What is different for we GSers, and I think it is self-evident enough to not require a task force, is that not ALL campus activities may appeal to us, and that we are smart enough to be able to self-select those that do. Yes, I am not going to do some of the more social things with people considerably younger than I am because it would not work for me or for them. But the more academic, political, or cultural opportunities are there for me to take advantage of and, after some initial discomfort, are generally welcoming places.
A campus organization that seems rather silly to me is the GSSC. (Sorry that I had to throw that in…)
Agreed on the GSSC being a clusterfuck. I know some of the folks on it are very well intentioned, but it’s an organization badly in need of reform. Is a single member in the leadership, aside from Jackie, actually elected?
You want to bitch about elections? Why don’t you run for council? You won’t…..few do because it is hard and take up a lot of time.
Most students at GS only care enough about there council to passively complain about it. This will be very evident in a few weeks when less then a 1/4 of students vote in the elections.
Give them a break, they give back more to our college than most do.
Hi Max. I think these are very clear. I see where you are going with it. It seems like you could condense it even euhtrfr. The first two seem to go together with the second being the supporting activity. So it might be something like, Articulate humanity’s relationship to energy (via a timeline that shows the transitions). Likewise, 3 and 4 sound like they might be combined into one activity. 5 is already an activity that supports 6. And 2 will also support 6. Thanks. This makes it easy for me to see how this course design could develop.
Jayme, thanks for the input. I’ve resevid my learning outcomes based on your feedback and trimmed them down to three. See what you think of these:At the end of this course, students will be able to:•Articulate humanity’s historical relationship to energy including building a timeline showing the transitions•Describe and discuss the current U.S. and world energy situations and develop a U.S. energy plan for the future•Create and deliver presentations that teach course material to other students leading to mastery of online learning technologies and software