Does anyone care that these kids haven’t eaten in a week?
Perhaps finally noticing that someone put a bunch of tents on their lawn, the Columbia administration has responded to the Hunger Strike. In a University-wide email, they mainly cite initiatives that they're "already taking," including hiring some new ethnic studies faculty that they were already hiring anyway and talking about the Core curriculum in Task Force meetings they were already having. It may seem like their offer is basically, "How about we change nothing?" but consider this: When the hungry raised their voices to cry for a Vice Provost for Multicultural Affairs, the administration said that their ongoing review of that office "will be extended to incorporate consideration" of that. Guess incorporating consideration wasn't the pipe dream we all thought it was.
The Columbia College Student Council has formally stated its support for a less ludicrous version of the Strikers'demands. It almost makes you wonder if the representatives that Columbia students actually elected are more reasonable than those who appointed themselves through the alternative "pitch a tent and stop eating" method.
Of course, the student council doesn't have the media savvy to put a giant paper octopus in front of its tents. Somehow representing Columbia expansion, the octopus lasted about a day before it was covered with a besloganed banner to protect it from rain. Ah, Hunger Strike demands: the thin shield between reality and a melodramatic, confusing spectacle.
And the best news of all? The Hunger Strikers met President Bollinger outside his classroom to hand him some slogan-heavy balloons He gave half of them to a stranger on 117th Street before, as Spec has it, he "carried the remaining balloons into his compound." Striker Victoria Ruiz, CC '09, responded with what may be the best cryptic threat of the whole Strike: "This is the first of many things he will be receiving."
Possible other things he will be receiving:
- Party Hats painted as black as Bollinger's soul
- Cotton Candy as substantive as his response
- One of Those Things You Blow at a New Year's Eve party... painted as black as Bollinger's soul
- Tootsie Rolls
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November 13th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
I actually have heard several people ask, “what’s up with the people camping on the quad?”
If they have accomplished anything, it’s informing the campus community that, should our housing fall through for one reason or another, there is no rule against packing up and setting up camp on the quad.
(Excellent post, by the way)
November 13th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Butler is ugly. Stop taking pictures like this.
November 13th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Ivygate got it right. No one cares.
November 13th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
This post is actually funny! Like, I’m a Columbia student, I acknowledge that these are serious issues, but this article wasn’t terribly offensive, didn’t make the author look like a huge tool, and was all around of good quality. Tallyho!
November 13th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
has anyone ordered a dozen pizzas to be delivered to them yet?
November 13th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
I was going to offer them some brownies from the dining hall. But that might be racially misconstrued as well. Starve, bitches, starve for the future!
November 13th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
You know, I feel like I missed a big chapter of this story, but…what, exactly, are their demands?
November 13th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
1) Diversifying the Core by including East Asian, Middle Eastern, and African texts 2) Resurrecting Ethnic Studies possibly by funding African Studies 3) stopping Manhattansville.
November 13th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Question: If they don’t like the core, why did they choose to go to Columbia?
November 13th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
my problem with the strikers is that they treat their demands as if they were morally right. however, these demands cannot merely be seen in a dichotomy of right vs. wrong. they argue for more money and more professors for ethnic studies, but have not proven why this center should receive funding and professorships over other, arguably needier areas of study. manhattanville expansion is also a complex issue that cannot be reduced to a right and wrong debate. their tactic of hunger striking is just an attempt at forcing the administration (and the student body) to agree that their views are morally superior.
November 13th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
@lioness: Meooow. Rather, ROOOOOAR big cats roar don’t meow. At this point, it is safe to conclude that most Columbia students disagree with the hunger strikers. I say this from my frequent survey of Bwog and the general reactions I have come across.
November 14th, 2007 at 12:22 am
Only at Columbia would students strike for more administration. What the Hell made them specifically want a vice-provost for multi-cultural affairs?
So stupid, especially because money like this is diverted from current use because no one would endow something so stupid. So, in effect, they are asking for funds to be diverted away from financial aid or professorships, or building maintenance to be given to bureaucrats.
They can starve
November 14th, 2007 at 12:53 am
At least maybe they’ll be more attractive now.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:21 am
Hopefully they’ll starve to within an inch of their lives, undergo a week of intensive care, turn around to sue the school, have the case thrown out of court, get counter-sued for defamation, and end up having to pay $250 grand. Too bad we all know they’re sneaking food by the day.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:22 am
i walked by that octopus today. laughed my ass off. oh, the entertainment value.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:50 am
http://www.bwog.net/articles/don_t_stop_the_fire
November 14th, 2007 at 3:16 am
this is hilarious and not a serious issue at all. as a minority (and yes, i’m a real minority aka not asian), people like this piss me off. “multicultural affairs”? what the fuck is that? changing the core curriculum so everyone has to take more bullshit cultural studies/women and gender studies courses? sweet man. i mean sure racism is bad but this clearly is not the solution, just a waste of everyones time.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Even more importantly, “racism” isn’t even involved. So they don’t like the core curriculum, bid deal, grow up. It doesn’t mean the university administration are racist bastards. Although the “bastards” part is probably accurate.
November 14th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
what makes me laugh is that they have CANDLELIGHT VIGILS for the strikers every night. I thought you only had vigils for people who were dead.
One of the vigils was sponsored by Lucha, who wanted to dedicate the vigil to the hunger strikers AND anyone killed trying to cross the Mexican-American border. WTF?
November 14th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
I propose a vigil held for every human who’s died in history.
Hell, I’ll strike for it if I have to.
November 14th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Dartmouth ‘10: Well said. If they don’t like the Columbia Core, they should have gone to BROWN.
We are a university founded in the western canon, in a western nation. If they don’t like the fact that what makes their current existence possible is the western tradition, then WTF did they come to a known Euro-centric curriculum? Messing with the Core just waters it down and takes away from the legitimate achievements of the West since Antiquity.
November 14th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Dartmouth ‘10: Well said. If they don’t like the Columbia Core, they should have gone to BROWN.
We are a university founded in the western canon, in a western nation. If they don’t like the fact that what makes their current existence possible is the western tradition, then WTF did they come to a known Euro-centric curriculum? Messing with the Core just waters it down and takes away from the legitimate achievements of the West since Antiquity.
November 15th, 2007 at 12:42 am
who invited a GS student to comment? GS has a disfigured core.
November 16th, 2007 at 1:48 am
Who invited Barnard students to hunger strike? Barnard has no Core, at all.