HUC Says Students Should Boycott 'Powerless' University Committees

The HUC struck the first blow at its own ineffectiveness last night when it passed a resolution demanding that "students should not participate on any committees--of the student-faculty-administration variety--until they have been assured concrete power in these decisions in which they are asked to 'participate.'"

The resolution was one of 13 proposals submitted by Jeffrey Alexander '69, vice-president of the HUC, in a 23-page report on the decision-making process at Harvard. The report included recommendations that the President of the University be elected to a four-year term by both students and faculty and that a minimum of one half of Harvard's Board of Overseers be composed of students and faculty.

HUC Hits HUC

The resolution against student participation was aimed primarily at the HUC itself which now appoints representatives to most student-faculty committees and last year created the Student-Faculty Advisory Committee.

While over 80 angered freshmen had attended the HUC meeting to protest the exclusion of freshmen from the parietal changes now before the Committee on Houses, the Alexander report completely overshadowed the rest of the evening's agenda.

Considering only the first five of the report recommendations, the HUC also passed by a 10-6 vote a resolution calling for nomination of House Masters by a joint committee of students and members of the Senior Common Room in each House.

Challenge to System

Tonight's action was the first time that the HUC has made a direct challenge to the entire system of student government at Harvard. "We want to get away from the advisory angle," Lance Lindblom '70 said, "and concentrate on real student participation."

The Alexander report broke decision making down into three areas--educational, social, and financial--where the HUC felt students had nominal, but not decisive influence.

In the educational proposals, the HUC unanimously recommended that student review boards be set up in every academic department at Harvard to channel student complaints directly to department chairmen.

Discussing the role of students on joint student-faculty committees in the past, the HUC resolution advised students not to accept minority membership "on any group which makes the 'social' decisions in the College."

"Every time we get on a committee we have no power and only serve to ligitimize Faculty decisions that are not what we want," Alexander said in defense of his proposals.

At the beginning of its meeting, the HUC agreed by a 13-6 straw vote to make its suggestions only broad recommendations. Alan M. Zaslovski '68-4, one of the prime backers of Alexander's proposals, said, "We're so far from getting any of these things passed that it wouldn't be right to get bogged down in specifics now.