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In This Issue

• Tom's Restaraunt
• Morningside Heights: Like NYC, But Not
• Letters to the Feditor
• Fed Guide to Internships
• CUicide and You
• Advisors? Who Needs 'Em?
• Housing and Dining Fun Quiz
• Attack of the Killer Barnard Blowjob
• Adventures in the John Jay Elevator
• If You Don't Smoke, We Won't Think You're Cool
• LERNER DELENDA EST
• Piss Off/On Your Roommate
• Fun With Fu!
• Guide to Your Columbia Nervous Breakdown
• THEY WATCH
• Comic - Stickman Theatre's Political Explosion

The rubble from which Lerner rose, like Shredder in "Secret of the Ooze."

It's been five years since the Great Glass Elevator to Nowhere affectionately called "Alfred Lerner Hall" opened. It's also been called "True 3-D Donkey Kong," an "ugly New Jersey shopping mall", "completely useless," and "a piece of crap" (Architecture Digest, Volume 69, #Yer Mom, 2000). The funniest thing Lerner has ever been called, however, is "a student center."

The vast majority of the aesthetically questionable building is unseen by the average student. The average student wanders in to check its mail, get a package, grab some tasty food to shove into its main facial orifice, and then exits quickly to avoid getting caught in the Escheresque ramps' eternal looping. Only students who desperately need the space spend large amounts of time in Lerner. These include student groups and performances, which Lerner was supposed to serve when it was built to replace the old, cramped student center, Ferris Booth Hall. And they loathe the place. Speaking for the doomed Erector Set, one flyer from morningside-heights.net, the webpage of the local community board, summarizes the problems: "I am ugly. I went over budget. My users hate me."

Think Lerner seems fine? Just you wait. You are young, practically still dripping with the womb-fluid of your birth into the life of a helpless undergraduate infant alone and unprotected against the grinding gears and teethy digestion of the Columbia Experience, and might naively still believe the fantasies of NSOP or your Days on Campus tour-guide. They might have told you the price tag (85 mil.) and extolled the newness of Columbia's "student center."

What are the essential problems with Lerner Hall? Unlike a student center, Lerner makes only twelve rooms available to student groups (for an undergraduate body in the thousands, not to mention graduate groups and Barnard). And for precious space in these rooms, groups must compete not only with each other, but also with other university events and outside corporate groups. Even the vice-president of Student Services, Lisa Hogarty, makes no claim that Lerner is primarily a student center before seven o'clock in the evening - instead, the daytime hours are given over to the outside events.

Of course, mention this to Hogarty, or Peter Rennee, the recently promoted Associate Director of Lerner Hall (the one in charge of scheduling), and they'll tell you that outside events are only allowed to rent space in Lerner Hall after pre-calendaring, the process by which student groups reserve space in Lerner the semester before events take place. So, in order for one to use student space in the student center, one has to both belong to a recognized group and have the forethought to attempt to reserve space six months or so in advance. There is only one freely accessible space to students - the single room of the Student Development and Activities wing on the fifth floor. If you're wondering why you might see so many empty rooms at night, it's because even when the meeting rooms aren't being used by corporate events, they are kept locked so that the setups for those paying clients aren't disturbed.

More disturbingly, neither Hogarty nor Rennee even promise that students really are given first priority. Both, when pressed, admit that non-student events, whether from higher up in the administration, or even paying non-university clients, are allowed to reserve ahead of students when it means snagging an especially profitable client. What does this all spell? Walk into Lerner during the school week, and you're more than likely to encounter a bunch of suits, in addition to the "non-University affiliates" who rent space, there's also the administration, the Law School, and the Business School fee-paying suits who will take over the space for days at a time and can be downright hostile to students who dare check their mail while an important presentation on aerospace investment and market analysis is being given.

Hogarty and Rennee defensively point out that in the past year, only 21% of the events held in Lerner were non-student-group events, and only 7% of the total were non-affiliates, i.e. paying corporate clients. However, they cannot provide any data which shows the actual use of the space - after all, the average corporate "event" could be an 8-hour rental of the auditorium, whereas every half-hour student band rehearsal or group meeting counts equally as an "event." Nor can they show how this has changed since the building opened. Since it is reported that the revenue has increased steadily every year since Lerner operated under Rennee, who was specifically in charge of corporate clientele before becoming Associate Director, one is left to conclude that corporate events are renting more and more hours in the building, despite increasing demand from student groups for more space. Lisa Hogarty, whose prior experience is in managing corporate events at large hotels, admits that the eye is always on the bottom line, whereas providing better services to students is merely "icing on the cake" of Student Services. Yeah, those are her words.

That Lerner Hall is a poorly designed space is universally acknowledged. Bernard Tschumi, the former Dean of Architecture at Columbia, has left us a space with many technical inadequacies and frightful design flaws from a performance perspective. Ask anyone who's ever had to put on a performance here. In addition, space left for student groups, the ostensible reason why the damned thing was built, was minimized by the architect. However, on top of these problems, the way the building is run seems to ensure that students will keep getting fucked over trying to use their own student center.

Next Week: More on why it's going to get even worse.