Grovelling for Your Fall Votes

They wear suits to meetings that no one else attends and make Dean Jewett look underdressed. They place ads swamped with political rhetoric, pleading for affection in campus publications. They sling mud uncontrollably at election time.

They are your Undergraduate Council representatives--politicians in every sense of the word, trying to get that extra lick of experience in a sheltered atmosphere before moving on to law school. When's the last time one asked you what you thought was wrong with College life?

The last two weeks have been filled with peculiar events involving the Council. First, the Council took out twin ads, in two different campus publications, detailing spring grant allocations. The Council also took o' 'an ad, "A New Spirit of Openness," in Fifteen Minutes, The Crimson's weekly magazine.

The business offices of the publications would not release exact figures for costs, but any amount of money spent on these ads is too much. The Council should not allot funds for advertising in its operations budget; that money should be reapportioned for grants, especially in a year that has been financially tight for many struggling student groups.

In a telephone interview conducted by a staff reporter, Secretary of the Council Randall A. Fine '96 said he could spend "as much as I want" on ads if he remains within the limits of Council by-laws. If campus publications raised their ad prices through the roof, presuming that the Council actually pays for ads, the by-laws would permit the Council, at [the secretary's] discretion, to spend the entire Council budget on ads!

The most intriguing element of the advertisements has to be the actual content of the "New Spirit" ad. Beyond its grammatical and syntactic mistakes, it says that the Council's new mission is to help "undergraduates setting their own priorities [and] creating their own rules and guidelines."

Is the Council trying to develop into a autonomous governing body at the University? Students did not elect members of the Council to set guidelines for their lives--the less of that done the better. The Council's self-proclaimed priorities, such earthshakers as "Cable Television in the Houses" and "Academic Calendar Reform," cast further doubt on its judgement as an advisory body. Why aren't the major issues of the University--race relations, the place of athletics, and class diversity--on the list? Perhaps because these are conceptual issues, not the sort of pork that supposedly gets votes in Council elections.

The text proceeds with a rejection of "the tired rhetoric of 'change." In this advertisement, that overused word has been replaced by euphemistic counterparts, "Re-evaluation" and "reform." Generalities abound here, just as in any good campaign ad.

Towards the end of the ad, the tone becomes tritely self-righteous and a shade more revolutionary than one would expect from a traditionally conservative organization. The Council wants "to fight together, as one unified voice." The script-writing continues: "We want you to join us, as we set out on this student crusade..." It sounds like Harvard Square is transforming into Tiananmen, but in reality they're just inviting you to attend their meetings.

As far as actually getting in touch with students, the Council has done little except for a dining hall poll about the academic calendar. At last Thursday's Council Re-evaluation Committee meeting. Fine explained that "it hasn't been done that much because the issues this semester weren't that issue-oriented," Hmm. One solution he offered was "if all the U.C. members asked their friends" about campus issues. Do you have a friend on the Council? You'd better if you want a say in what goes on there without having to drag yourself to a Sunday (home-work-day) meeting.

One must ask why the Council has suddenly found it necessary to buy a large ad whose only purpose is to exhort students to come to meetings and compete with elected members for speaking time. Guests can't vote at the meetings, after all. Could it be that the Council has fallen into disfavor? Is this part of the Re-evaluation Committee's strategy to gain acceptance?

The text says, "There is no reason to believe that things must remain the way they are." This statement should first be applied to the Council itself. The organization does not have to exhort students to join in its "crusade"; the Council is ultimately accountable to students anyway. If undergraduates didn't offer their $20 donations--yes, donations, though they were jokingly called "tax dollars" at the Re-evaluation Committee meeting--the Council would have no money. If you don't think the Council is doing its job, send an unmistakable message by withdrawing the part of your $20 earmarked for Council operations ($5.83) for this year, assuming you had enough confidence to pay it in the first place.

Among the proposals discussed at the Re-evaluation Committee meeting was for a Council-associated watchdog group, similar to the recently disappeared "Harvard Watch," to monitor its own business. With all of the slick stuff that goes on in the Canaday B basement, this might not be a bad idea. But wouldn't the Council do better to create a polling arm to gauge student opinion? Another proposal would move the Council in the opposite direction. Alan M. Grumet '94 proposed, in place of several existing Council committees, a Student Affairs Committee that would have an "information/propaganda" office, as he put it. Sounds like more lousy ads.

Finally, there is no reason why the Council should try to take on the characteristics of a sovereign governmental body. It should work altruistically as an agent for students' wishes, not as a breeding ground for future Washington cocktail party cannon fodder. Hopefully, no more of these substanceless, money-wasting ads will appear. Council members spend too much time worrying about their political images, and not enough time finding out what students really want.

Recent attempts by the Undergraduate Council to improve its image are a waste of time and money.

You can still withdraw your $5.83 from the Council's mysterious coffers.