Vote Yes for a Strong Council

FOR most of its seven-year history, the Undergraduate Council has been plagued by a lack of direction. Although it has become a more active political forum this year, there is no institutional guarantee that the council will continue to represent student opinions on issues more substantive than keg parties and shuttle bus schedules.

But this week, students have the chance to energize the council and shape its future agenda. By voting "yes" this week on a referendum to have the entire student-body elect the council's chair, you can make the council more accountable to student opinion.

Last December, the council nixed a constitutional amendment that would have created the popularly-elected office of a president. Although the majority of council members opposed the proposed change--fearing that a president elected by the entire campus would encroach on their power--the council wisely voted to hold the referendum this week on the issue.

Under the current system, council members alone have the right to elect the student body's chief representative and spokesperson. But a campus-wide campaign would force candidates for the post to listen to their constituents, giving students a more powerful voice in their government.

MANY of the arguments council members used in December to attack the election-reform plan show exactly why the measure is needed. Some members argued that they alone were knowledgeable enough to gauge a candidate's qualifications for the job. They warned that the unlettered rabble that is the Harvard student body might thrust some satanic demagogue on them, who would paralyze the council under the weight of his or her ego.

An elected chair, they warned, would be politically biased and might call on more speakers during council debate who share his or her positions. A biased president might even fudge vote counts, they whined.

This is the kind of timidity that has caused the council to become little more than a resume-filler for its members. A faulty election procedure played out year after year is the cause of much of the council's weakness.

After a brain-numbing campaign which raises few important issues, less than half of the students elect the 88 council representatives. Council members then spend the rest of the year wondering if they are a legitimateenough body to represent students on anything more weighty than setting up concerts or serving milk and cookies.

THIS year, the council has begun to awaken from its stupor and has spoken out on important issues like the all-male membership of Harvard's final clubs and the need for more minority and women faculty at Harvard. But without structural changes, there is no guarantee that the council's new-found political awareness will last longer than the academic year.

Much of the current activism is simply a function of the surreal alliance between nominally conservative Chair Kenneth E. Lee '89 and his former opponent--outspoken liberal Frank E. Lockwood '89--both of whom will graduate this June.

Lee and Lockwood both support the election-reform plan because it can institutionalize the council's political voice after they are gone.

In a campus-wide campaign, candidates could not win on the basis of the petty council posts they have held in the past. In a series of mandatory debates and public appearances, candidates would have to articulate their vision for the council that transcends the archaic inner workings of the body.

Candidates would have to stand on a platform that could serve as a working agenda for the council throughout the year. A campus-wide vote would also increase interest in the council and make students feel that they have more of a stake in the running of their own student government.

If the referendum passes this week, the Undergraduate Council can truly become the voice of student opinion. A "Yes" vote is a demand that the word "student" be put back into student government. At stake in the balloting is the direction of the council itself. Will it increasingly use its nascent political voice to represent student opinion or will it backslide into a stagnant pool of chocolate milk and malaise?