Undergraduate Government at Turning Point

Student leaders will reconvene their constitutional convention tonight with two purposes in mind polishing off plans for a new more centralized student government and launching a drive to muster popular support for the proposed Undergraduate Council originally scheduled to assume power last spring

The convention will meet for the first time since December and will address a long standing demand from several campus minor its groups for guaranteed representation in the new governing body Guaranteed representation is the only major issue left for the convention to resolve but students and College administrators said this week that explaining their efforts to a some what indifferent audience and meeting crucial deadlines for receiving Faculty approval may present more for midable obstacles.

Convention chairman Leonard T. Mendonca '83 joined several of his colleagues in predicting that despite past difficulties in preparing a document acceptable to minorities, student leaders and the Faculty, the convention would present the student body with a proposed constitution by the first week in March Fifty-one percent of all undergraduates must approve the constitution before it is sent to the Faculty and the Corporation for a final okay.

Early student approval of the document is necessary because the Faculty Council and full Faculty would probably require two months to review and approve it, John R Marquand secretary of the Faculty Council said.

Faculty complaints over an initial guaranteed minority representation plan and an elaborate scheme for distribution the proposed Undergraduate Council's $60,000 budget slowed the constitution's progress last semester leading to postponement of deliberations until this month.

Optimistic about overcoming Faculty resistance this rime around students and College officials cited a shared desire to replace the existing network of inefficient lame duck committees with the centralized Undergraduate Council.

In addition john B. Fox Jr., dean of the college reactivated the previously disbanded committee on Houses and Undergraduate late to serve as an interim governing body when at become clear that the Undergraduate Council would not get off the ground early in 1982.

Perpetuation of committees originally slated for extinction may tax the capacity of Harvard's small group of student politicians. while at the same time diverting attention from plans for a wholly revered scheme of government students and administrators said.

'Burned Out'

"I'm burned out. said Kenneth R. Moya '82, a former student Assembly member live got this thing called a thesis to do." he added voicing a feeling of frustration common among long-time members of the student government corps.

We're probably the only university that I can think of that has no student government." Moya said we're hand of behind the times here Even if Moya and other seniors are around long enough to witness the expected approval of the consecution by the convention several students expressed doubts about whether here is a broad interest in student government at Harvard.

While student government insiders have spent the past three years struggling for a more efficient bureaucratic structure the undergraduate body as a whole has expressed little desire to affect College policy through formal channels.

"Our biggest problem is not going to be opposition to the constitution the problem is going to be will enough students turn out at the hallot" said Mendonca.

Alan A Khazei '83, another Student Assembly member. suggested that Harvard students send to "seek out their own individual niches" rather than join general-purpose organizations that are more popular at other schools. "Maybe it's that there are so many leaders here." he added "Maybe that's why there hasn't been an overwhelming support for this."

"There seems to be a gap between the students very much involved and the rest of the student body. "Khazei said, though he added that if students throw their support behind undergraduate government. bureaucratic problems will be overcome.

Two points of view emerge as student leaders prepare for tonight's renewed push for a constitution. Some participants, like former Student Assembly Chairman Andrew B. Herrmann '82, warm matter-of-factly that "if this deadline is missed, that will signal that we'll never have an organized, funded student government here."

Others. like Sidney verba, head of the Faculty's committee on the constitution emphasize potential long-term success: "The Faculty certainly has an interest in seeing that there will be an effective student government to work with.