A Bowl of Alphabet Soup

In 1969, when Radcliffe and Harvard students voiced dissatisfaction with the administration, the Faculty found a solution--a bowl of alphabet soup. The Harvard Undergraduate Council (HUC), Harvard-Radcliffe Policy Committee (HRPC), Students Faculty Advisory Council (SFAC), and Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS), which still lingers, formed the new student bureaucracy. Ten years ago, the Committee on the Organization of the Faculty--formed after a Paine Hall sit-in protesting Faculty unresponsiveness to students' needs--established the familiar Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life (CHUL) and Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE).

Merle Fainsod, Pforzheimer University Professor, chaired the Committee on the Committee on the Organization of the Faculty (Fainsod Committee(, which began with two purposes: to recommend changes in the governing arrangement and procedures of the Faculty, "which will better equip it to cope with the problems of change and adjustment which lie ahead," and to find ways "students can play a significant and responsible role in reaching decisions."

The Fainsod Committee divided into sub-committee for internal Faculty affairs and student-faculty relations. Students served as consultants to the committee but held no voting rights. However, Kenneth M. Kaufman '69, a former chairman of the HRPC, in a letter to the Faculty said he did not think there were "any issues strictly internal to the Faculty; and that on every issue students could contribute a valuable viewpoint and perspective." Subseqeuntly, the HRPC asked for full voting rights on the Committee.

Although the Faculty invited student groups to plead their case for voting rights, they rejected the proposal by a large margin. Nevertheless, the Fainsod Report offered an explanation for not granting students suffrage. "The case for vesting faculties with the final responsibility for appointments, curricular and degree requirements rests on their professional qualifications and on the fact that they must live with their decisions over many studnt generations." It seemed paradoxical to many students that the group charged with finding ways to include undergraduates in University decision-making denied them a formal vote on the matter.

The Committee issued its final report in mid-October 1969, abolishing HUC, HRPC and SFAC. Fainsod proposed student voting rights on an expanded version of HUC. The four-year-old HUC, which passed resolutions favoring a quick end to the Vietnam war and the elimination of parietals, also intiiated and occasionally completed, studies of the University Health Services, Food Services, admissions policy and hiring practices. Under its new mandate, the Fainsod Committee dealt with "undergraduate life." Hence, CHUL.

The equivalent of the HRPC today is CUE. The HRPC mainly considered curriculum policy, auditing departments and making strong but non-binding recommendations. When the HRPC voted itself out of existence on January 9, 1970, it willed its $600 in assets, furniture and secretary to a new "Supercouncil," which would have served to coordinate the various students groups on campus. If the Committee had only called it the SC, the soup might have been tastier.