The Coming Spring

With seven semesters of government under its belt, the Undergraduate Council has to elect new officers before it can move onto a spring semester full of business.

The February 9 elections will highlight growing Council factionalism over which issues Harvard's self-proclaimed "first working student government" should confront, according to representatives. The crux of the debate is whether the Council should take "political" stands.

Like other incumbent chairmen who have run for re-election, Chairman Brian C. Offutt '87 will face competition in his bid to hold onto the Council's top slot. Melissa S. Lane '86, head of the government's academic arm, has announced her challenge. If past years are any indication, other challengers probably will step forward also before the vote.

But unlike any of his predecesors, Offutt will confront a challenge masterminded by Council veterans who have formed a "ticket" of opposition candidates. Three members campaigning for the Council's most influential offices have bound their bids together.

The opposition ticket plans to present a different, more activist, vision of the Council than Offut's, which holds that the Council should improve the quality of student life by concentrating only on issues directly affecting undergraduates, members say.

Through his semester as chairman, Offutt has consistently opposed Council activism, often unsuccessfully trying to steer the group clear of broader political issues such as divestment.

Last semester, trustees of the Endowment for Divestiture, a Council-linked pro-divestment group, said they wanted to remove Offutt as the group's largely administrative president. With one trustee calling Offutt's approach to student government, "A yuppy approach to life at a pre-yuppie age," the controversy developed into a debate of the proper role of the Council.

That debate will be of central importance in the upcoming elections, and it will serve as a backdrop for several items which should be in the news as the semester unfolds. The Council plans to pick up several pursuits, including:

POLLING: Students will get the opportunity to voice their opinion on the divestment issue in one week when the Council holds a campus-wide referendum. The referendum will ask questions on the University's policy on investing in companies which do business in South Africa and on the Council's role in advancing the majority opinion. Organizers of the referendum are presenting it as the final word on the Endowment, and hope it will prompt the Council to speak out on juicy, controversial questions.

ADVISING: The Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR), a Vietnam-era body which disciplines students for so-called neglect of responsibilities as good citizens, came under scrutiny last spring for its handling of several student protests against the University's investment practices. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences asked the Council early this year to report on students' ideas about the controversial, pseudo-judicial committee. The Council plans to release a report sometime this spring.

DINNING: The Council presured the University to add chocolate milk and now it's moving in for the kill--extended dining hall hours.

DRINKING: Harvard's crack-down on under-21 drinking motivated the Council to ask for several changes in College policy, including the establishment of a special social fund for house parties. But one representative recently commented "We've gotten nothing we've wanted," from the administration. Council members say they'll be trying again this semester.