On this week’s episode, the editor-in-chief and deputy editor of the Chronicle discuss student protest regarding campus response to SA allegations, Semester in LA, Filipino American History Month and Improv club.
Transcript:
0:05: Welcome back to Chronicle Headlines.
0:06: I’m Marc Balbarin, the deputy editor of the Columbia Chronicle. And I’m Will Blakley, the editor-in-chief of the Columbia Chronicle.
0:12: Good morning, Marc.
0:13: Good morning.
0:13: I missed you, Will.
0:15: Mm, yeah. You didn’t miss me too?
0:17: You know, recording just went a little smoother with Anna, and I was looking forward to a 10-minute day, not a 20-minute day, but it’s OK.
0:24: OK, whatever.
0:25: Go talk about your stories.
0:28: Yeah, so first off today, we have a student protest that took place on campus this last week.
0:33: It was against an RA who has some allegations against him circulating on social media.
0:41: We will not be naming this RA as they do not have an official criminal charge against them, so, you know, we can’t give a name.
0:49: But you were at the protest, right?
0:51: Yes, I was. And yeah, 16 people was kind of where it leveled out. At one point, I think there were about 20, but it’s 16 for most of the time.
1:02: It started at the University Center where this RA supposedly works and it went around campus to the Student Center, then to the 623 building,
1:14: and they dispersed from there.
1:16: What were some of the things they were chanting or saying at this protest?
1:19: Yeah, sure. So one of the three organizers, who asked not to be named or interviewed, was holding a sign that said “Columbia protects rapists”, and they were going around repeatedly chanting, “Columbia is housing a rapist.” And at one point in front of the
1:42: University Center, they were asking people to chant, “Fuck men,” with them. So yeah, those were kind of the main points being made. They were going around, saying the name of the RA through a megaphone, as well as commenting on some of the allegations against them.
2:03: Of course, at least we know the college is monitoring this. On Monday, Oct. 12 before the protests.
2:12: Desirée Anderson, hopefully I’m getting this name right, the new director of Equity Issues and Title IX coordinator, she released a statement to the college just informing students of what to do. Like, if something happens, here’s a place for you to inform us.
2:29: Yeah, one of the deans of the college, Douglas Eck, said students have several opportunities to become better informed about reporting sexual misconduct, although I will say in our anonymous interview with one of the alleged victims, they felt that
2:47: the process for them was not very clear or very smooth, and they were having issues with it. So, you know, student opinion is a little different.
2:57: According to a 2025 survey, granted there’s only 133 students who responded out of almost 4000 students who were enrolled, only 23% of students know where exactly to report sexual misconduct.
3:11: Yeah, which is a low number compared to other colleges —
3:15: University of Chicago, it’s at 48%, so you know, that’s more than double. So yeah, it’s understood that students don’t fill this out, but also,
3:26: it seems like students I have talked to throughout working on this story didn’t even know that we had an office, until recently with these emails they’ve been recently sending. Yeah. Anyways, in other news, what else have you covered this week?
3:41: Yeah, there are some updates to the Semester in LA program,
3:46: some really exciting ones actually. so, Semester in LA, for people who don’t know, is an internship, based-abroad studying course, where students can go to LA.
3:57: They have to get an internship, and that’s part of their education.
4:00: They have guest speakers come in and talk about the experience of working in LA.
4:09: They are restructuring the program a little bit.
4:10: They recently moved to a new studio, I believe, and it’s a much bigger space than our last one.
4:20: The last one, we only had about —
4:24: I think it was a 15-seating classroom, and now we have three classrooms that sit 15 people each, so much bigger. They’re trying to restructure the program to accommodate all of these new spaces, right? So that means they’re trying to appeal to more majors, so they’re gonna be having more guest speakers that appeal to
4:43: a larger range of students. They’re also trying to connect with alumni more. They’re talking about doing a program where, essentially, alumni can come back and get retrained in a specific discipline of filmmaking. So say you’re
4:55: doing Semester in LA for directing or something, right?
4:58: You can come back for screenwriting or producing or gaffing or DPing, etc.
5:04: So they’re trying to expand that alumni outreach.
5:06: They’re trying to have some alumni speakers come back for free workshops and stuff.
5:11: Oh, OK, yeah, kind of give them a reason to come back to campus to engage with the community and also
5:18: build that network that’s so important, especially in the film industry — your industry, where it’s more about who you know and not what you know, right?
5:27: Exactly, yeah, yeah. And I think this will be a really good opportunity for students who want to go to LA and build their film careers in LA.
5:33: I have a friend — two friends who are in Semester in LA this semester, and they’re pretty excited about these changes.
5:38: I didn’t talk to them for the story, obviously just because —
5:41: Your bias. Yes, exactly. But, they seem excited about the changes, and I know at least one of them is planning to stick in LA, not only to just build their career over there, but also so they can take advantage of these new programs opening up and these new spaces opening up. I will say, because some people were confused about it — we clarify in the article, just for people who saw the announcement that we have a new studio, this new studio is bigger, has more classroom spaces and has a soundstage with 12 spaces on it.
6:13: These soundstages are not open access to students.
6:17: The courses aren’t being taught on these sound stages, but the advantage of them is that there are actively productions going on at these sound stages where students can potentially get jobs.
6:26: So, I just wanna throw that out there.
6:28: I think that’s also exciting.
6:29: I know some students were disappointed like, “Oh, we can’t use the soundstages?” but it’s like,
6:32: yeah, I mean, they’re professional Hollywood soundstages.
6:34: They’re not gonna let college students use them — but there still is the opportunity to, you know, get jobs on those sets and whatnot, which is exciting.
6:40: Do you see yourself in LA anytime soon?
6:42: No, no. I frankly just don’t like LA.
6:47: It is not the city for me.
6:50: 1. I don’t like driving. 2.
6:53: I just, I love Chicago so much.
6:58: I wanna stick in Chicago for as long as possible.
7:01: Nothing beats Chicago, in my opinion.
7:02: Yeah, no, exactly.
7:03: All right, what else do we have this week, Marc?
7:06: Oh, I’ll take this one actually because it’s right now for those who may not know, Filipino American History Month.
7:14: It’s my month as a Filipino, and Columbia had a celebration, the Sampaguita Celebration, on Oct. 14 on Wednesday.
7:23: Sampaguita is a national flower.
7:24: It’s very of the Philippines.
7:26: It’s used in perfumes and some other stuff like that, very
7:32: sweet. It’s hard to describe the smell. So, it smells nothing like you.
7:39: OK, well, that was uncalled for during my month.
7:44: I don’t need to call for it.
7:45: I can smell it.
7:49: Anyways, at the event, you know what smells great?
7:51: What’s that? Lumpia.
7:53: It’s basically a Filipino egg roll filled with meat, vegetables, all that stuff.
7:57: It’s fried in a pastry wrapper.
8:00: It’s one of the best foods. It does sound really good, honestly.
8:03: Yeah, it smells great too.
8:06: Yeah, I’m sure the food smells great.
8:07: I’m saying you smell bad.
8:09: OK, you know what?
8:12: Anyways, the Improv Club, they had an event this week as well, right?
8:16: Yes, yes, they did.
8:18: I mean, I don’t know much about it.
8:19: I think you would know more about it, because I know you took an improv class here on campus.
8:23: Improv is really fun.
8:24: It’s really such a great skill, especially for a journalist, because, for example, you have to
8:29: come up with questions on the spot. You have to let the conversation flow rather than stay rigid, or in this case, you have to be on a podcast and you have to take insults from your co-worker and kind of figure out how to rebound from that by improving.
8:43: OK, Marc, tell me what actually happened at this improv event.
8:45: Alright, Improv Club. They had an event with the Kindness Week programming, just a week celebrating your own kindness and being nice to people, which I know you know nothing about, Will. But yeah, they just do games,
9:00: like, zip, zap, zop.
9:06: OK, but it sounds like a lot of fun.
9:07: Yeah, I did some improv when I was growing up and I enjoyed it.
9:11: Again, I think it’s what made me the annoying man I am today.
9:15: Yeah, 100% agree.
9:17: Yeah, and the annoying man you are today.
9:19: Oh, no, I’ve always been annoying.
9:20: I didn’t need improv for that.
9:22: Oh, OK, yeah. You know, natural annoyance is rare and special and explains a lot about you.
9:29: It’s just like that one theater.
9:30: What’s it called?
9:31: The Annoyance.
9:32: Yeah, I actually have a friend who performs there sometimes.
9:35: I don’t know if she’s been there in a hot minute, but she’s a great improv comic.
9:39: Anyways, that’s it for this week of Headlines.
9:42: Once again, my name is Marc Balbarin.
9:43: I’m the deputy editor of the Columbia Chronicle. And I’m Will Blakley, the editor-in-chief of the Columbia Chronicle, and we will see you next week. Marc,
9:50: I hope I don’t see you next week.
9:54: All right, cut the camera. Bye, bye, bye.
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