Do the Right Thing

THE Undergraduate Council is now eight years old, and it's time to address a problem that has been haunting it since its creation: How can the council act as the legitimate voice of student opinion when many students question its ability to represent them responsibly?

In recent months, particularly since the now-infamous ROTC and Suzanne Vega incidents, Undergraduate Council bashing has become more popular than ever. The common complaints are heard over and over: "They don't represent me," "How could they do something so stupid," and even, "The council doesn't DO anything."

The current lack of faith in the council expressed by a large part of the student body is the result of a string of careless decisions that range from merely ill-informed to inexcusable. The net result is a Catch-22: Few students take interest in the council because the council doesn't do very much--and it doesn't do very much because nobody seems to care.

Now the new council has an opportunity to get a fresh start. If it can prove its effectiveness quickly, it might break the vicious cycle of apathy and ineffectiveness.

WE offer 10 things for the council to do in its first semester, proposals aimed at restoring students' faith in their own representative body:

1. Publish and publicize agendas ahead of time, at least two days before every meeting. If students had known the ROTC vote was coming, the controversy wouldn't have taken the council by surprise.

2. Make every council proposal pass through one of the council's five committees. No committee ever voted on Suzanne Vega. The council is not an autocracy. Take advantage of the diversity of opinions available through the committee system.

3. Require the appointed people to follow-up on every action the council requests. Too often good ideas approved by the council die because the chair "forgets" to write a letter. There should be a list of requests, which is constantly updated as each is taken care of or as new requests are added. At the beginning of each meeting, ask the responsible officers what they did for the council over the past week. If they did nothing, embarass them publicly.

4. Appoint a council researcher historian. The council often debates issues endlessly without any clue about what precedent has been set by previous councils. The council debated ROTC for two weeks, and no one ever mentioned that the Harvard student government had already declared a position on ROTC in 1982--mostly because no one knew. The "historian" (a work-study job) should have a few days before each debate to prepare an information packet for council members on the upcoming topic. The result would be a better informed council.

5. Require council members to meet with their constituents regularly. Most people don't even know who their representatives are. A simple monthly meeting with each house's reps can do wonders for student/council interaction.

6. Slash the number of council members. In order to promote more competitive council elections, there should be fewer representatives from each house or Yard area. Instead of five from most house and six from the few biggest ones, there should be three council members per house, and four for the largest houses.

7. Crack down on council absenteeism. On several occasions last year, the council barely mustered a quorum. The council already has a rule which dismisses members who miss too many meetings. Enforce that rule strictly. Representatives who don't go to meetings don't represent anyone.

8. Consult non-council student leaders on a regular basis. Last year, the Harvard Union of Student Officers brought together leaders from different realms of student life, but had no official representative capacity. The council should ask official leaders of all the student organizations to meet on a regular basis as an advisory body. The council can't champion every cause on campus, but it can learn valuable lessons from those who do.

9. Use more ad-hoc committees--but only when there's someone devoted and competent to chair them. The two success stories of last year's council--campus security and minority and women faculty hiring--came as a direct result of the actions of ad-hoc committees and their dedicated chairs. But when ad-hoc committees--like the committee on divestment--aren't taken seriously by their chairs, nothing gets done.

10. Know what you're talking about when you meet with the Corporation. Last year, a group of the council's supposed best and brightest embarassed themselves in front of Harvard's governing body with an inexcusable display of ignorance. A chance to meet with the Corporation is unfortunately an exceedingly rare privilege for students. The council blew the opportunity. the council's main strength is that the recognition and respect afforded it by the University. When the council loses its credibility with the University, it isn't worth the room it meets in.

THESE suggestions are largely structural. But structural changes can have a substantial effect on the debate of a body that has not yet decided exactly what it wants to do. Once the council has regained the faith of students through internal reform, it can begin to act instead of just reacting, taking on the issues--political or otherwise--that are most important to the student body. Maybe then the council can take itself a little more seriously and earn back the confidence of the student body it purports to represent.