To Each According to Its Need

The latest attempt at establishing viable student government at a university where for years it has failed has several new facets. But one quality makes the year-old Undergraduate Council different from its many and varied predecessors; it has money.

The bulk of the $58,000 collected from a voluntary $10 term bill fee which 83 percent of students chose to pay were to funding undergraduate student organizations.

The result council and student group leaders agree, has been a much needed infusion of cash into undergraduate life

The council this year gave 74 grants to organizations ranging from the Harvard-Radcliffe Group for Architecture Exploration to the Go game club to the Friends of the Spartacus Youth League.

The council's grants committee adopted a set of guidelines in February to evaluate grant applications. The guidelines required a budget outline, sisted that the organizations solicit funds from other sources, and encouraged sponsorship of activities that benefit the Harvard community as a whole.

The group said it would fund "educational" activities, but not those "designed to elicit support for religious ideologies [to] promote membership in sectarian groups."

The committee this spring established an early February applications deadline but set aside some funds for emergency applications throughout the semester. The grants that received committee approval came before the full council for approval. The council rejected only one grants committee recommendation.

While some council members have complained that they do not have enough information to act on committee recommendations, most seem satisfied with the majority of grants work being done in committee.

However, several questions have been raised about the manner in which the money was distributed, particularly the value of the time-consuming "emergency" grants process.

Some argue that holding a certain amount of money for the emergency grants throughout the semester has resulted in the rejection of worthwhile one-time grants in favor of sometimes less stellar requests.

"Unfortunately, we had to cut some groups initially," says grants committee member Kelly L. Klegar '85. "They reapplied [as emergency applications] and were accepted. I'm not sure what to do about it."

Council Treasurer Peter N. Smith '83, who has been given much of the credit for developing the grants process, suggests that next year's council set two deadlines per semester and limit post-deadline funding to new organizations or for "more strictly defined" emergencies.

One example of a real emergency grant, Smith says, was the $391.17 awarded to the Speech and Parliamentary Debate Society in late March. The car being used by the club for a trip to an Ontario debate broke down and had to be repaired at a cost of $1000, says club president Anthony J. DiNovi. Though the car's owner paid about $700, DiNovi says the added cost would have ruined the team's chances of going to a major tournament in Chicago.

With the council's emergency money, the debate Society was once again able to make the trip, where the Harvard squad captured a national championship for themselves, DiNovi says.

DiNovi says that while he is grateful for the council bail-out, he echoes the call of many when he calls for change in the way the council gives out grants: "The council should fund the general operating budgets for several organizations instead of funding weird causes."

One cause cited as something out of the ordinary was the "Festival for Divestiture," a rally set to take place on Monday protesting the University's investments in companies operating in South Africa. In late April, the full council, for the first time ever, overturned a grants committee rejection, voting to loan $750 to the Southern Africa Solidarity Committee (SASC), the sponsor of the rally originally called the People's Commencement.

The loan has raised questions about political bias in the grants process. Some challenge the objectivity of that grant decision since the vote came shortly after the council had taken a strong stance in favor of divestiture and had asgreed to administer an alternative to the Senior Class Gift--known as the Endowment for Divestiture--which will be held in escrow until the University divests its South Africa-related holdings.

Several council members say that the council may have voted for the loan, despite the fact that the event's budget and sponsors had not yet been set. Grants committee member Felicia A. Eckstein '84 suggests that the council could have helped sponsor the rally, rather than giving the money to another organization Smith doubts whether the council should have funded the event at all .

SASC members Michael T. Anderson '83, insists that the council should make a practice of funding left-wing political groups because "the administration's side is presented over and over again. We're desperate just to try to compete."

While council funding has approved funds for the causes of numerous liberal groups, Smith says that conservative organizations receive more money from alumni and outside organizations than do liberal ones, which accounts for the larger number of requests from leftist groups.

Council members, nevertheless, believe expenditures and grants have been bereft of political bias. One example they cite is the council's decision not to donate money to the Endowment for Divestiture, even though the group has pledged to administer it for up to 20 years.

Though the new grants process has received some measure of criticism, most seems to come from groups among the 41 grant turndowns. And council members agree that Smith--who says he spends about 30 hours a week as treasurer--has developed a workable system basically from scratch.

Although the grants process may be the new student government's most lasting contribution to undergraduate life, its tangible effects in the inaugural year remain unclear.

While the council money helped fund several major student-sponsored conferences and projects and a number of publications, several approved projects may have never materialized. To insure that the funds would be spent to their intended purposes, the council has insisted that groups turn in receipts and detailed spending explanations to receive their grants.

As of last week, 25 groups had not sought the money that the council had set aside for them. These included money for issues of the Harvard Advocate; the Weather, a new freshman newspaper; Padan Aram, a literary magazine; and Lavendar Portfolio, the Gay and Lesbian Students Association's publication. Three projects at Phillips Brooks House had gone unaccounted for. But, in what may be representative of the government's unique gift-giving quality of the council's grants process, not every "untouched" grant belonged to groups with familiar names. Smith was still waiting to hear from the Ethics Society, the Lost City Folk Society and the Economics Association, before opening the council's much-heralded coffers.