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Improve Student Life

By David S. Graham

Dissenting Opinion

TELLING THE UNDERGRADUATE COUNCIL to play nicely like good boys and girls will not get the student body what it needs-action-oriented representation.

The council has not tackled the big issues on student agendas: the paucity of good core courses, problems with teaching fellows and sections, and problems with grading in some departments. Chocolate milk, grants, and foam fingers are nice, but academics are why we all came to Harvard.

Students need representatives who will push the administration to solve problems. Unless the council pressures it, college officials will find answers only in their own long time. Influencing the administration requires energy, authority, and action, not the council's hot air and glacial movement.

A more polite bureaucracy masquerading as capable representative body isn't the answer. A less committee-bound, more streamlined council might be.

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