Last week, Communiqué met with the SIPASA Presidential candidates to dig deeper on the details of their campaign platforms and what they hope to accomplish as President. From these interviews, we compiled a list of each candidate’s main ideas, and a “bests” lists that we hope will inform your voting decisions. To download the full interview transcript, just click the candidate’s name.
Big Ideas
- SIPASA’s purpose is to gather student opinion, form policy on those opinions, and keep students informed on what the administration is doing
- Better integrate student groups with one another & better support them
- Strengthen SIPA’s integration with other Columbia schools
- Expand SIPASA’s substantive role and build its profile and reputation
- Launch a “Raise Your Voice” website for students to raise concerns & track SIPASA progress on issues
- Establish a loan assistance repayment program, like Harvard Kennedy School has. We should set up a mechanism to pay back loans of students who go into public service
- Devise a more equitable registration process, such as the Business School’s bidding system
- Collaborate more with other policy schools
Nick Mider, EMPA, Economic & Monetary Policy:
- Raise SIPA’s profile by better building community while we’re here
- Be the voice for students to the administration
- Launch a “Hire Seeple” plan. We must collaborate with OCS to strengthen our alumni network and encourage them to hire SIPA students and alumni for open positions.
Shreevardhan “Shree” Sinha, MIA IFEP:
- Look for solutions that are already being implemented on campus for common student concerns and implement them here.
- Core courses need to be of exceptional standards. They need to be directly applicable to our work & taught well.
- Give more options to students, such as allowing students to substitute a thesis for the capstone requirement for students who want it
- Devise a better mechanism for addressing student concerns in a class, especially in instances of cultural insensitivity
- President’s job is to keep open communication with students
- Create a Columbia-wide grad school community
- Get SIPA more involved in the neighborhood community
- Revamp our professional development program to better utilize our alumni network
Candidate “Bests”
Best crazy, non-feasible plan:
- Olivia’s cheer-up “hug center”
- Rachel’s plan to solve climate change, eradicate child hunger, and cure malaria
Best crazy plan we hope will work:
- Nick’s “Hire Seeple” plan
- Marmik’s Loan Assistance Repayment Program
Best solution to the crappy SIPA backpack problem:
This one was split between two camps:
- Rachel, Nick, and Olivia all proposed investing in some form of better backpack, name-brand or other
- Marmik and Shree proposed scrapping the bag altogether in favor of another product that will serve the function of welcoming students
Best party idea:
- Nick’s Truman/Capote black-and-white Welcome Back party
- Rachel’s intercultural night
Most creative campaign posters:
- Nick’s memes
- Olivia’s emotive facial expressions
Best Freebies:
- Shree’s stress balls
Most in love with SIPA:
- Rachel. Who else would rave about Alice’s Café?
Comments are closed.