Students to Vote Today On Council Proposals

The new constitution for the Student Council goes before the student body for ratification today. Voting will take place at lunch and dinner in the House dining halls and the Union.

Students will be asked to vote on two issues: the constitution itself, and the name of the future council. A simple majority will decide the name, but a two thirds margin is required to approve the new charter.

The new constitution is the product of nearly six months work by a special re-organization committee of the Student Council. The committee submitted its report a month ago, and after a week of debate and amending, the Council approved it unanimously.

The Council could not decide conclusively what the name of the new body should be, and voted to leave the choice up to the students. The re-organization committee suggested the Harvard Council for Undergraduate Affairs, in order to avoid the implications that the new group is a student governing agency. It feared "improper implications associated with the name Student Council."

Some Disagree

A sizable segment of the present Council objected, feeling that the name Student Council was accurate, needed no revision, and would be clearer to people both within and without the University.

The constitution being presented today provides for a smaller Council than the current one. Membership would include one representative of each House committee, one representative elected at large from each House, and three freshmen. The re-organization committee thinks this size would render the council a more effective body, as well as make seats more competitive.

This system of selection emphasizes the importance of the Houses generally, and the House committees in particular.

The stated purposes of the new Council are to raise the general intellectual standard of Harvard and "to bring expression of undergraduate opinion before the governing bodies of the College," as well as to "encourage initiate and coordinate services essential to the student body."

In an attempt to discourage abuses such as those by former president Howard J. Phillips '62, which brought crisis to the Council last spring, the office of the president has been changed to that of chairman, and the power of the executive explicitly voted in a fourman executive committee.