Columbia University Student Council

Columbia University Student Council was university-wide body representing the interests and concerns students to the decision-makers at the University. However, it lacked any power of its own, which proved its undoing. As a body with student representatives from all schools of the University, it was replaced by granting students equal membership status as faculty and administrators in the University Senate. The Student Affairs Committee of the Senate, as organized after 1995 to include the student senators from every school, is in effect the spiritual successor of the Council.

CUSC had elected delegates from sixteen Columbia schools. The organization was frequently dismissed by Low Library because it had students from Barnard, Union Theological Seminary and Teachers College. .

History

CUSC was first formed in 1948 amid a controversial tuition hike approved by the Columbia trustees. It was intended to represent "the student body of Columbia University...in matters affecting the student body as a whole." By 1958, editorials were being written about CUSC being a "sick and dying organization." .

In 1960, CUSC pulled out of the National Student Association (now the United States Students Association) a national lobbying group dedicated to the interests of students.

In 1964, CUSC was able to successfully convince the City of New York to remove the entrance to the 116th St. subway station on Broadway that had existed in the median of Broadway and 116th. Because it was the only entrance, it had caused deaths and injuries.

In 1966, going against the Columbia Spectator and the Dormitory Council, CUSC opposed the construction of a gym in Morningside Park. Opposition to the gym would later be one of the core grievances of the 1968 protests.

Notable Delegates

• Eric Foner CC '63
• Jonah Raskin CC '63
• Harvey Goldschmid CC '62