Little Eleven College Conference Opens

A delegation of 23 Harvard undergraduates yesterday joined about 200 students from all the Ivy League colleges, Stanford, and the University of Chicago at the opening of the Little Eleven conference in Philadelphia.

The four-day conference will consider student input into universities' policies and compare specific programs such as foreign study, meal plans, and affirmative action at all of the participating colleges. "We want to put Harvard's programs and policies in perspective and see what we're doing differently from other schools," Mark J. Shlomchik '81, co-chairman of the Harvard delegation, said this week.

"We're particulary on the lookout for innovative programs no one here has thought of," Shlomchik added.

"It's amazing the way universities fool students into thinking there's no other way to do things, when in fact they're already doing them differently somewhere else," Libby Shaw '80, a delegation member, said yesterday.

"Students at different colleges need to work together to solve their common problems," Shaw added.

Harvard's delegation members were elected at two meetings open to all undergraduates last semester. Because they could not raise enough money to pay all travel and hotel costs, most of the Harvard delegates will stay in student's rooms at the University of Pennsylvania instead of with students from other colleges at a Holiday Inn in South Philadelphia.

The Radcliffe Union of Students and the Student Assembly have each provided $200 for the delegation. Delegation members raised another $200 at a party at Quincy House on Sunday night, and received two anonymous gifts totaling $300. Nevertheless, the delegation "will have to owe the conference some money which we will try to make up in future fundraising," Shlomchik said this week.

Other colleges, including Cornell, Yale, Dartmouth, and Princeton, have also not been able to raise the full $1500 cost of the conference, an article in this Tuesday's Columbia Spectator reported.

Divide and Conquer

Delegations will divide into seven committees this morning, and meetings will continue from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. today and tomorrow.

"We don't have much time, but we'll break for meals," Shlomchik said.