CC-SEAS relationship

Columbia College and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) are the two undergraduate schools for traditional college students at Columbia. Due to the way the University has evolved and it's current structure, the divisions between the two schools are often unnecessarily played up. CC and SEAS students jointly form a single student body that live, eat, and study together at Columbia.

While both schools are academically independent entities within the University, the undergraduates of the schools are administered under a joint office which essentially makes CC and SEAS students part of the same school.

The Division of Student Affairs, headed by Dean Chris Colombo, oversees admissions, advising, financial aid, student programming and activities, residential programs, the scholars program, study abroad, pre-professional advising, and more. They are your administrative shepard for 4 years.

Issues

US News and World Report Statistics

For years Columbia only reported the statistics of Columbia College to US News and World Report for their annual rankings of the "Best Colleges". This seemed to imply that SEAS wasn't considered part of the general undergraduate body. Since 2006 US News has been using the combined statistics for both schools, and the Admissions office has been reporting statistics for the schools jointly as well, rendering this point moot.

Flags

The flags and flagpoles on the South Lawn were a gift a CC alumnus, who supposedly stipulated that the flagpoles be used only for Columbia College flags. There have been reports, however, of witnessing SEAS flags on those poles during Days on Campus, so nobody knows how much truth, if any, there is to this rumor. Efforts by the Engineering Student Council to remedy this by placing one SEAS flag in the area have been uniformly unsuccessful so far. The counter-argument to this complaint is that the flags fly on Hamilton Lawn, in front of Hamilton Hall, the home of Columbia College, while a SEAS flag flies in the plaza in front of Mudd, home of SEAS. Of course there are limitations to this argument since the line between both schools is blurred- the undergraduate admissions office which handles applications for both schools is also located in Hamilton Hall.

Discrimination in the Classroom

SEAS students have reported instances of discrimination in the classroom.

Student Council Funding and Territoriality

Columbia College and SEAS have their own respective student governments, with class councils for each year of each class as well. While this makes some sense especially for the engineers who tend to have concerns and issues as engineering students that vary from many of their liberal arts and sciences peers, ESC officers will often complain that CCSC typically gets a disproportionately large share of student life funding. CCSC's response is that they do more "global" programming for all students. Incidents of school discrimination have occurred at which engineers have been asked to leave an event being sponsored by a CCSC office. Whether this incidents are rare and isolated or recurring has not been established. Neverheless, there have been instances of territoriality between councils. For example, the 2004 King's Ball was planned by CCSC for CC students, who could bring a date from any school. However only CC students were allowed to purchase tickets, under the reasoning that "CCSC is footing the bill."

In 2006, CC '07 Class President David Chait raised the idea of merging CCSC and ESC. Not much has been heard of the proposal since.

School of General Studies

Unlike CC and SEAS, GS has a completely separate administration. This is a result of, and results in a variety of complications with regards to GS. See Main Article, School of General Studies.

Notes

</references>