Student Council Ready To Ratify Constitution

Although acknowledging that last week's vote of the College did not match their advance hopes, the Student Council last night elected to accept, with two dissenting votes, the student trend in favor of the new constitution and to proceed with formal ratification.

On the premise that the undergraduate vote on the new constitution was actually held according to the rules of the present constitution, the Council interpreted the 85 to 90 percent yeas among those voting as grounds for polling its own membership and obtaining the two-thirds majority now required for any amendment.

The Council majority pointed to the fact that 60 percent of the resident population of the College had voted and that most of the residents favored adoption of the new document. They emphasized that only the poor turnout at Dudley Commuters center -- whose 47 voters nevertheless registered a unanimous "yes"--and the large numbers of unavailable non-residents kept the favorable proportions of the vote from appearing in expected numbers.

No explanation was advanced for the several thousand ballots which were handed out but not returned.

Significance of Vote Discussed

A return of approximately 2100 favorable votes out of about 2400 cast, representing a majority of the 4100 undergraduate residents but not of the 5400 total enrollment, caused two alternatives of the Council's final action to be discussed.

First was the opinion that the student turnout did not constitute the authority for ratification which the Council had given the College previous reason to believe was necessary. Second was the proposed retention of the Council's present power of amendment until the new constitution had undergone a successful trial period.

Both points were dropped when most of the Council held the favorable majority of interested undergraduates last week were sufficient to make the revised constitution workable.