Counseling the Council

AS the Undergraduate Council reconstitutes its leadership and plunges into a new year, a paramount concern is whether the body will concentrate on "political" or student-oriented "service" issues.

Many "service" issue proponents in this fall's council elections cited the campus-wide furor over ROTC last spring as a reason to retrench from the activist course charted by former Chair Kenneth E. Lee '89. They urged the council to address fewer divisive issues and focus more on adminstrative tasks like planning social events and installing frozen yogurt machines in the dining halls. None of these people got my vote.

The reason? Despite the council's grevious procedural bungling, the ROTC debate was the organization's finest hour. The issue drove many detached students to the previously unheard of step of actually identifying their council representatives and addressing them with their concerns.

The ROTC debate was the first occasion that I remember on which the council affected my life in any sort of sustained way. For a week groups picketed, posters covered the Yard, and in virtually every house dining hall, students engaged in ideological arguments about homosexuality, financial aid and education.

Like the "service" advocates, I think the ROTC controversy sent an important signal about what role the council should play on campus. But unlike these candidates, I think the spring debate clearly demonstrated that the council best serves precisely when it gets political, fomenting sometimes unruly debate about pressing political questions relevant to the Harvard community.

THIS is not to suggest that the council's more directly student-oriented service functions are not valuable. Many worthy but indigent student organizations have benefited from the council's grant system. The council also funds social functions, the majority of which succeed reasonably well.

But the council's power to improve services on campus is woefully limited. For instance, one of the council's triumphs a few years ago was getting chocolate milk in the dining halls. Unfortunately when the dining services found it inconvenient to continue complying with the resolution the following year, they simply ignored it. Will we see chocolate milk again in the future? Don't hold your breath.

But whatever the council's shortcomings, it is still a group of representatives elected by the general student population. So even if the organization holds little real power, its composition qualifies it perfectly as a forum for student debate on University issues.

THE ROTC controversy exemplified the potential that an activist council has to elicit student response. The council's decision was effectively non-binding since the faculty would have had to approve the reinstatement or ROTC.

Nonetheless, the council's stand provoked a refreshing wave of concern on campus. For at least a week, students actively discussed the state of society around them and reminded themselves that sociology and government are but everyday realities and not just sections of the course book.

Most Harvard undergraduates do not fit the cliche that all students are apathetic. But an area that does deserve increased student attention is the conduct of the University we attend. The Undergraduate Council is the place to begin building this interest.

There are a host of political questions bearing on the Harvard community that still need to be addressed. The council should consider taking positions on the Pittston Coal dispute, Corporation elections and the proposed construction of a hotel on the site formerly occupied by the Gulf Station.

THE concept of an activist council can go too far, of course. An undergraduate council that devoted most of its time debating Third World debt or conflict in the Middle East would quickly and rightly become an irrelevant laughingstock.

But there are many divisive issues closer to home. Although students many not have the power to solve these questions, they do have the right--as well as the obligation--to make their voice heard.

Despite the fiascos of the Lee administration, students should appreciate its experiment with activism and urge the body to continue its evolution in that direction.