This week on Chronversations: A conversation with students about the 135th anniversary of the college, and the third annual Block Party Event
TRANSCRIPT:
0:08: Welcome back to the Chronicle Conversations.
0:11: I’m your host, Aaron Guzman.
0:13: This week on Chronversations, the college has celebrated its 135th anniversary at the Conaway Center on Tuesday, February 11th, and held the 3rd annual Block Party on Wednesday, February 12th.
0:27: Students talk about their experiences at the Block Party event as well as what the 135th anniversary of the college symbolizes for them.
0:35: Absolutely.
0:35: So Block Party is our spring Convocation of sorts.
0:39: So this is an opportunity for clubs to be seen on campus by students, primarily targeted towards new students who may have transferred or come in as freshmen between the fall and spring semesters.
0:52: This is also an opportunity for our new clubs to recognize in the fall.
0:57: Who obviously had missed Convocation because they recognized after the fact this is their opportunity to get their name out a little more, get more attraction, get more members, all that good amazing stuff, and it’s a little more interactive than Convocation.
1:11: So this is also just a great place for our orgs to say, “Hey, look how cool we are, look how much fun we have,” and yeah.
1:19: Junior student Kierra Cooper talks about her experiences transferring to Columbia and how Columbia’s 135th anniversary symbolizes its strength.
1:29: I mean, truly, I transferred here. I started out in college as a biology major.
1:33: That’s very different from what I’m doing now, and I think that’s kind of a part of the point of why I came here.
1:40: I wanted to not be surrounded by biology students and by doctors and things of that sort.
1:48: I wanted to be involved in the arts and I wanted to be around the arts and I think that’s what really makes Columbia such an amazing place is that everyone here is so committed to the arts and to creating art and you can really feel that in the environment of these students.
2:04: Everyone you meet is so talented, is so great at making things, creating things.
2:10: It’s, and that’s really all I wanted out of both my major and my college experience, I think it’s a great mission.
2:16: I think it’s something that can become a real permanent fixture on the Columbia campus and that’s kind of what we hope for.
2:25: We’re all students here, but we only have a limited amount of years and we really want to make this into something that can last the rest of Columbia’s legacy, which I mean it’s we’re 135 years old and I with a history like that even though things have been tough recently, I think it’s going to be a little bit harder than what we went through the last two years to knock down on 135 year legacy.
2:50: I fear for the future of the college because of the changes that have been made.
2:55: However, I do know that this is a college that has persisted through a lot of history and I do believe that it will continue to fight longer than this and I really hope that we can continue to be a part of that fight.
3:12: Senior Varle Moore talks about the legacy of Columbia and what the college holds for its future.
3:19: With its instructors, I feel confident that there’s a possibility that we could keep going for a long time. From an administrative standpoint with the board of directors the school is struggling.
3:37: It’s at a financial point in which it does not know how to stay afloat.
3:43: And overall, as an academic institution, its main purpose should be its academics, yet that’s where most of the funding is being pulled from.
3:55: There needs to be some other way to ensure financial stability of the school.
4:04: My favorite thing about Columbia is that people are encouraged to be independent artists and entrepreneurs.
4:15: I know at my previous institution, University of Arizona, you weren’t really able to make creative choices, create plays, podcasts, events, etc. without a lot of red tape.
4:32: And in Columbia, I feel people are able to network super easy without the administration pushing too far and stopping us.
4:44: That’s all for this week.
4:45: Make sure to stay up to date with campus and metro news at columbiachronicle.com.
4:50: And sign up for our newsletter at columbiachronicle.com/newsletter.
4:55: Don’t forget to check out our Three C’s podcast where we tell you about the 3 biggest things you need to know at Columbia for the week.
5:01: I’m Aaron Guzman, thanks for listening.
Copy edited by Patience Hurston
