University Senate Campaign Interviews: Keana Simon CC ‘27
Simon wants to utilize her prior experience in University government and reform trustee-student relations.
Ms. Simon is a sophomore at Columbia College studying political science. She is currently campaigning to be a Columbia College Representative to the University Senate. Sundial editor-in-chief Alex Nagin sat down with Simon to discuss her agenda and approach to leading as a student with two years of prior experience in University government.
Interview lightly edited for clarity.
Alex Nagin (AN): Please introduce yourself to the student body for those who aren’t familiar with you.
Keana Simon (KS): My name is Keana Simon. I really want to look for opportunities to continue serving the community. I came here to Columbia for that. That’s pretty much it.
AN: On your Instagram, you wrote “We must remind the trustees: Without us, they have no power.” Can you explain this a little bit more elaborate on what you mean?
KS: It goes into the classic idea of consent of the governed. People don't like what the trustees are doing with the administration, campus life, and the community in general. We technically do have the power to reform the University or even bring it down. That's radical, but the core idea of it all is that we need to remind trustees that they draw power from us. It's not the other way around. All governing bodies try to take away students' hope, or take away the idea that we have power. So they keep expanding their power. What you see with the University Senate right now is the fact that we're supposed to be co-governing with the administration and the trustees. But they have been expanding their power, and then they're not getting the student or faculty perspective. And what these last two years have given the University Senate is a chance to really expand their influence, reestablish themselves in the community, and help students feel like people are listening to them.
The administration has taken several actions that have completely excluded the University's Senate, specifically referring to the case of the NYPD on campus. And then you see your student senators scrambling to write emails, saying “we don't agree with this, we do not condone these actions, but we also did not know this was going to occur.” That's not what's supposed to happen. A house divided cannot stand where we're supposed to be one entity, but you have two different sides. So it also goes back to the point that we want the University governance to be unified and to be on the same page.
AN: There’s no golden answer to this, but how are you actually going to stop the administration from overriding the powers of the Senate?
KS: We’re not reinventing the wheel. It's really just about continuing to be on the administration's ass. We need to be accountable every time they are vague, every time they say something that's not exactly truthful to come up very quickly and say, this is not true, we are not behind this. As a senator, I want to continue that momentum. And I think that's very important now to do, because what we're seeing is a lot of student senators who are graduating. Especially now we have this rare situation where we have three open undergraduate seats. Including SEAS. So four undergraduate seats. That's a lot of new people coming in that don't know how to navigate the University Senate. I spent the last two years learning about how it works. And even there, it was restricted because I was a head legislative aid. So I think it was valuable from the experience I gained to have another person who's running and who's there, who understands how it works, who already has working relationships established. I've worked on several initiatives with our current CC Senator Maria Martinez, on FLA space expansion, with even our SIPA graduate students, Gabriella Ramirez, and the staffers on the Student Affairs Committee. I think having those relationships established and understanding fundamentally that the University Senate is a collaborative environment is really important to understand. It's not a body where everybody does their own thing. You have to work with others.
AN: What do you say to people that believe the University Senate is largely powerless against the administration, who might not want to bother voting?
KS: They want you to have no hope. They want you to not turn out for these elections. They want you to elect people that don't know what the University Senate is about and they're going to take advantage of the fact that you're ignorant about what we can realistically do. We are about everything student affairs, ranging from education to quality of life on campus. So as a University senator, it's definitely going to be debunking and demystifying misconceptions about what the Senate does, but also, I just strive to be an honest candidate. I strive to be someone that you can trust. And know that my goal is to serve you. That's how I see leadership.
AN: Columbia has been through a lot in this past year. There’s a large ideological divide on campus, especially between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine students. How will you tread the balance of representing all those interests and voices?
KS: That is a very good question, and that's something we're still debating in SAC right now. A couple weeks ago, we sent out a survey to all of the Columbia graduate schools and Columbia College as well, to get their perspectives on several issues that are happening on campus. Although for the majority of questions about gate closures and protests people were aligned, there was still that ten or five percent of people who had an opposing view. And I think that's very valuable to look into those perspectives, because there is strength in differences and in understanding different perspectives. I think that's one great thing about the University Senate, and specifically SAC, which is that you have representatives from each graduate school who have different views.
So, in terms of me specifically addressing that, it's simply about being available. I'm planning to create Calendly’s. I'm starting this summer. I'm ready to work to understand how I'm going to go about this. And specifically ask people what they want. Don't just tell me your concerns. How do you see this issue being solved? What frustrates you about campus? I want to really synthesize those ideas. I want to keep momentum up because when you slow down momentum, that's really a time where the administration and the trustees can take advantage of that and expand their power, and you don't want that because right now there's a lack of communication.
We are supposed to be democratically governing between the three branches, but we're not doing that. We're being overlooked and sidestepped. So I think now is a perfect time to consider the different perspectives and the dissenting views people have to really consider how to solve these issues on campus. That's the truth. But ignoring them and only considering the 90 percent is not going to benefit us at all.
AN: Finally, can you give us a 30 second elevator pitch? There’s a lot of candidates, and only three will be elected. So why should voters choose you?
KS: I am the only candidate with direct University Senate experience. And I think that's very valuable because there's a lot of procedures, there's a lot of rules that go into the University Senate and we don't have time to waste in terms of pushing what we really value in this community. So I think it's just valuable to have at least one senator that knows what's happening, that can help the other senators get their bearings and hit the ground running. I'm dedicated to the community. I've been doing this work for two years. I'm ready to do another two.
Mr. Nagin is a junior in the Trinity College Dublin Dual BA program studying political science. He is the editor-in-chief of Sundial. Follow him on Substack @alexandernagin.