Staff Infection

AGRAVE conflict threatens the workings of Harvard's largest public service organization. The Phillips Brooks House Association is plagued by an ill-defined relationship between the organization's full-time staff and its undergraduate members.

As PBHA undertakes this year to revamp its structure and governance, the organization should keep one goal clearly in sight: ensuring that the authority of undergraduates is on par with that of the professional staff. Otherwise, staff meddling will continue to interfere with PBHA's true purpose.

In early October, it was revealed that Gregory A. Johnson '72, the graduate secretary of PBHA, allegedly attempted to funnel a $150 contribution from PBHA to the campaign of then-Cambridge City Council candidate Kenneth E. Reeves '72, a former PBHA committee head. Students charged that Johnson used a blank voucher signed by the student heads of the Academy Homes committee and submitted a fraudulent receipt to justify the expenditure.

Johnson denied any intentional deceit in the incident, saying that the misinformation on the receipt was an honest mistake. Despite his alibi, Johnson acknowledged that he had intended to divert money to Reeves' campaign function, saying "I tried to do it in a way that would be legal."

THE Johnson incident illustrates a serious problem within PBHA: the evident tendency of the organization's full-time staff, along with some students, to use PBHA as a vehicle for advancing their own agenda.

The problem arises from the strong authority exercised over PBHA by the non-students. According to some PBHA members, the organization's paid professional staff doesn't give enough weight to the concerns of student members. Perhaps this is because Johnson began only this semester to hold regular formal meetings with student coordinators. Or maybe it is because undergraduates do not even control the funds that pay the the professional staffers--Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 does.

Jewett's statement that PBHA is "in most cases, and independent student association," only tells half the story. Many important organization-wide decisions-- hiring, for example--are made only with Johnson's express approval.

And Johnson doesn't always turn to students before making his decisions. This summer, student members of PBHA's governing body complained that Johnson did not allow them adequate input into the selection of a new professional projects coordinator. The coordinators' job is largely to work with students.

It seems odd that the Harvard administration, which requires that undergraduates have decision-making power in all undergraduate organizations, should wink at, or even condone, the control of non-students over PBHA.

THE professional staff is able to exercise so much power over the students because some students are in tacit collusion. Those students who share the staff's agenda are not as disturbed when the staff makes decisions without consulting them.

For example, some PBHA members have charged that the undergraduate directors of the Academy Homes committee actively went along with Johnson's plan to funnel money to Reeves' campaign event, despite an absolute prohibition on committees making political contributions.

Even some undergraduates who otherwise seem concerned with the staff-student relationship have been unwilling to deal with the issue openly and explicitly. In an internal memorandum, Thomas J. Conally, Jr. '90 and newly-elected PBHA president Rosa A. Ehrenreich '91 argued that facts of the Reeves incident should not be openly presented in front of the entire cabinet, writing that it would be wrong to "burden Cabinet with demoralizing, unpleasant and unproductive information."

A POWERFUL mystique surrounds PBHA. Its record of good works tends to deflect criticism of the organization's operations. But the fact is that there are problems at PBHA that need to be addressed. Staff-student relations must be high on the agenda of PBHA's upcoming reorganization.

This will allow students to better focus on the real purpose of the organization: providing needed services to thousands of Boston and Cambridge residents.