Not Miss Mitties

WITH THE cry "student power" ringing round the world, Radcliffe, in its own quiet, slightly bored way, is about to witness a determined attempt to bridge the generation gap.

Today, the thirty-five members of the Board of Trustees meet for the second of their tri-annual sessions. On their agenda will be both the new constitution of Radcliffe Union of Students and an amendment to alter the Radcliffe Statutes, allowing students to sit on the Radcliffe Council--the College's most important decision-making body. Far from a revolutionary surge, the proposals represent a genuine effort at dialogue on student-administration concerns. The Trustees should not pass up this opportunity for open-minded consideration of student demands.

The RUS constitution differs on two vital points from its RGA predecessor: it calls for student autonomy in making amendments and student representation on the College Council. Though it is not the Trustees but the Council, at its meeting next Monday, that will have the final say on the constitution, all the Council members also sit on the Board of Trustees and the opinions expressed at the Board meeting are bound to carry weight.

The Trustees do have to decide on any amendment to the Statutes, but the process is a complicated one. They will discuss the proposal to let students sit on the Council, but a vote has to be delayed for one meeting at which time a majority of the Trustees must vote on it. The Board sits again in June but this session is always poorly attended, so the matter will probably have to wait until September.

TODAY'S meeting, however, is a beginning. It is a start towards what Debbie Batts, RUS President, sees as responsible cooperation between the administration and students on problems of concern to both. This is how the Trustees should see it, too; Miss Batts' is not an unreasonable vision. It is definitely not an attempt by a group of power-hungry Miss Mitties to take over the College, as Miss Batts and her very sober co-officers have stressed over and over again.

There is a certain urgency to the situation. RUS has a broad mandate to stay firm on its essential demands. Any compromise on these would be a betrayal. But that does not rule out considerable dialogue on what the demands mean and how best to achieve them. The essential ingredient is a willingness on the part of administration and Trustees to give and take on the two really important issues as well as the problem of student seating on administration committees. On the seating question, progress is being made, since several college and Trustee committees are actively seeking student members.

Should the Trustees and the Council refuse any concessions to these truly reasonable demands, students could reject any and all self-government rather than put up with an unwanted bastard. It is a truism that the College administration, the Trustees, and the students would be the poorer.