COOP'S STUDENT DIRECTOR ELECTIONS

To the Editors of The Crimson:

The Coop amendment ballot which members have recently received should be understood for what it is: a blatant attempt on the part of certain Law and Business School professors, incumbent Coop officers, to perpetuate their tenure. Not content with making the nominating procedure for non-student directors so arduous that of the several submitted petitions only one has ever been accepted, they now proceed to the ultimate solution: abandoning free elections altogether. Nothing could be more contrary to the spirit of cooperative enterprise than to consign the representation of 35,000 non-student members to a self-perpetuating group of ten stockholders. Even under the present by-laws, an outsider who wishes to run must have 100 signatures, which is ninety more than the incumbents need. And, as they point out, 374 votes may be a small number to be the first elected, but that is 374 more than they got last year when they avoided an election--by disqualifying on technical grounds the petition of a distinguished Harvard alumnus! But now, disqualifying individual petitions is too tedious a task for them, so they plan to preserve their salaries and control by spending $15,000 (of the members' money) to eliminate the elections which threaten them so, even at the risk of violating chapter 156B sec. 50 of the Mass. Gen. Laws, which provides that "no class (of directors) shall be elected for...a longer period than four years, and the term of office of at least one class shall expire in each year."

The student-election amendment, on the other hand, is somewhat subtler. Management makes the argument that certain schools should be guaranteed a minimum number of directors. If one grants that the logical method is to divide the students into separate voting classes and to discontinue electing all at large. But that is not what they propose. They want to eliminate from the bottom of those elected until they get their "required" proportion. (Note: In my two elections as a student (HGSAS) I was the last man elected and I would have been eliminated under the new amendment.) The fact is, this new amendment would effectively prevent any student from a small or politically somnolent school from ever being elected--for instance, someone from the ETS or Harvard Divinity School, and yet, just such a person might have a salutary effect on the moral outlook of the Coop's officers.

My conclusion, then, is a simple one: Vote against both proposed amendments. Donald E. Steele   Student Director 1969-70, 1970-71   Law School Branch Mgr. 1971-72   Alumni Director (by petition) 1973-74