Today's Graduate Council Election Will Decide Fate of Reform Group

An eight-man reform slate endorsed by the Graduate Student Organizing Committee (GSOC) expects strong opposition in the current Graduate Student Council elections.

Although the GSOC slate faces no formal opposition on the ballot, a conservative faction of the Graduate Student Association (GSA) has kept support for the "new left group" at a minimum, according to Margaret Theeman, a member of the Graduate Student Council.

Ballots will not be counted until the voting ends at 7 p.m. today. But Miss Theeman predicted that unless more GSOC suporters make themselves eligible to vote by paying the two dollar GSA registration fee the reform slate will lose.

Approximately one-third, or 1500, graduate students at Harvard are members of GSA.

Michael R. Gardner--a candidate on the GSOC slate--predicted that the heaviest voter turn-out will be from the traditionally conservative dormitories. Polling-places are in dormitories, and most publicity for the election has been in dorms.

"The tone of the opposition has been harsh. GSOC has been accused of being an SDS affiliate, and of planning to abandon the sherry parties that GSA sponsors each week," he said.

Michael H. Schwartz, also on the GSOC slate, cited differing interpretations of the functions of a graduate student organization as the reason for founding GSOC last fall.

GSOC has drafted a platform supporting Afro's recent demands and urging withdrawal from Vietnam. The Committee also opposes "university support, direct and indirect," of the war.

Loud-Mouths

A GSA officer said that any organization that claims to "speak for 3000 graduate students is really speaking for the 500 loud-mouths who bothered to vote." He called the GSOC demand for social action "ridiculous" and said that GSA's function was not as political spokesman for graduate students.

Voting continues today at Harkness Commons (11:30-1:30 p.m. and 5:30-7 p.m.), Emerson Hall (10:30-3:30 p.m.) and 6 Ash Street (5:30-6:30 p.m.).